So today is another branch into new territory: sweet making! I tried making fudge a couple of years ago but it didn't work. I think I suffered by not having a sugar thermometer since I could not tell if I'd reached the soft ball stage or not, even with the water test. The fiancé also attempts to make fudge for me each Valentine's Day, with varying degrees of success. He certainly gets better every year. Anyway, since my first failure I'd not really considered making sweets again until I visited my family over Easter. My Dad's partner has a bunch of cooking books in her kitchen which I decided to rifle through since that is what I do when I'm bored. I fell in love with The Home-Made Sweet Shop. It is a GORGEOUS book with lots of recipes that I wanted to try. I have since bought my own copy but it was only yesterday that I was brave enough to try one.
Today is the birthday of the fiancé's dad, and he likes Turkish delight, thus providing the perfect excuse to give it a go. I only made a fifth of the amount in the book since 1.6kg of the stuff seemed a bit excessive. Consequently I shortened some timings based on what looked right. I also ended up doing it twice because the first batch caught and burnt. I blame some of the sugar in the sugar syrup re-crystallising. When I made the second batch I switched up the order I did things to get a better flow and so my syrup didn't cool too much and become impossible to transfer into the rest of the mixture. Hence I'll document the way I did it. It was probably the smaller amounts which affected the method. Ah well.
The final result looks quite good. Having never had Turkish delight though, I honestly wasn't sure if it was right. The fiancé tried it for me and said it tasted nice but he's never had it before either so that didn't help much. So I'll have to wait for a final verdict on taste from his family. The results are in! Apparently it tasted very much like Turkish Delight and was therefore delicious, it was just a little bit too soft.
Recipe - adapted from The Home-Made Sweet Shop
Makes about 320g
- Butter for greasing
- 180ml/6fl.oz water
- 90g/3.2oz caster sugar
- Pinch of cream of tartar
- 15g/0.5oz cornflour
- 40g/1.4oz icing sugar, plus extra for coating
- 10g/0.35oz honey
- Lemon extract
- Rose extract
- Pink food colouring
- Grease a small square tin with the butter. I used two 5x10cm/2x4inch tins.
- Mix the cornflour, icing sugar and 10ml/0.3fl.oz of the water together in a heatproof bowl to make a paste.
- Boil 140ml/4.7fl.oz of water and then pour onto the cornflour paste. Whisk until dissolved.
- Pour into a saucepan and simmer until it is clear and thick.
- Meanwhile, put the caster sugar, cream of tartar and the remaining 30ml/1fl.oz of water into a saucepan placed over a medium heat.
- Stir the sugar to dissolve it, bring to the boil and heat until it reaches the softball stage (114°C/238°F).
- Add the the clear cornflour mixture slowly, whisking the whole time and then boil for another 5 minutes. The mixture should be a pale yellow and rather transparent.
- Turn down the heat and add the honey and a little lemon and rose extract. I used about 1/4 tsp of each. Add a couple of drops of pink food colouring and mix.
- Pour into the prepared tins and leave to cool for several hours.
- Cover a board with icing sugar and turn the Turkish delight out onto it. It may need a knife run around the edges and a slight nudge to encourage it out.
- Coat in icing sugar and cut into smaller pieces. Re-coat with sugar a few times as it will absorb it.
- When storing, do so in an airtight container with lots of icing sugar to stop them sticking together. Eat within one week.
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