Turkish delight

 I have always said that if I had to choose one chocolate bar to live on for the rest of my life (do you torture yourself with these hypothetical food questions too?), I would pick Fry’s Turkish Delight. The reason would not be that, as the wrapper claims, it has “60% less fat*”,  but simply that it tastes fresh, isn’t too rich, and has a unique flavour. So this week I set about trying to recreate the taste at home.

While I really don’t think I managed to replicate the exact flavour and jelly-like consistency of a bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight, I have accomplished microwaveable Turkish delight (loosely based on a Super Food Ideas recipe) very similar to the boxed kind that you buy at the supermarket covered in icing sugar, and added some chocolate (a fetish I alluded to in my last post).

You might be interested to learn that the original name for Turkish delight is lokum. It was introduced to Britain after a British traveller tasted some in Istanbul – and was obviously as delighted by it (see what I did there?) as you will be if you try out my recipe.

Ingredients

750 ml hot tap-water

35 g powdered gelatine

500 g caster sugar

120 g cornflour

150 g soft icing sugar mixture

¼ tsp cream of tartar

2 tsp rosewater

4 drops red food colouring

200 g good quality chocolate, roughly chopped
Extra soft icing sugar mixture (if desired)

Method 

1. Grease and line a 27 x 18 cm slice pan and line bottom and sides with baking paper.
2. Pour the tap-water into a large, microwave-safe bowl (I used my big Pyrex bowl) and sprinkle half the gelatine quantity over the top, whisking in thoroughly with a fork. Repeat with the remaining half of the gelatine. The gelatine should break up and mostly dissolve. Stir in caster sugar.
3. Microwave for 5 minutes, stir with fork, then microwave again for 3 minutes.
4. Whisk in cornflour, icing sugar mixture and cream of tartar. Microwave for another 3 minutes.
5. Whisk in rosewater and red food colouring, allow mixture to cool for five minutes, then pour into prepared pan. Scrape any bubbles from the surface with a fork. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.
6. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, ensuring bowl never touches the water. Stir occasionally until melted and smooth. Spread chocolate over top of the Turkish delight with a spatula.
7. Refrigerate about 20 minutes before turning out of the pan onto a chopping board and cutting into squares (or funky shapes) with a big cook’s knife.
8. Straight before serving, roll squares in a small bowlful of icing sugar, if desired.

Tips

• Cooking times are based on my 1100 watt microwave.
• Leave plenty of baking paper overhanging to make it easy later to remove the Turkish delight from the pan and peel off the baking paper.
• From Step 5 onwards, I found it easier to use a proper whisk instead of the fork.
• At Step 5, it’s important to allow that 5 minutes of cooling time so that the baking paper doesn’t warp and buckle into the middle of your mixture. Try it and you’ll see what I mean!
• When melting chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, be careful not to burn yourself on steam escaping from between the bowl and the saucepan – especially when you're stirring the chocolate. You can actually buy double-boilers to use for this exact kind of thing, but I haven't bothered yet.
• Heating your knife will make it easier to cut the Turkish delight. Heat your knife by holding it under a (very) hot tap for a whole minute and drying it off quickly before cutting. If you have trouble with the chocolate shattering, try turning the Turkish delight upside-down to cut.

“*than the average of leading chocolate bars”