Marguerite Patten's Recipe...

This was an unmitigated disaster. I won’t attempt to make excuses for this one at all. It was dreadful!! The recipe supplied by Marguerite Patten (who has never failed me before!) asked for powdered gelatin which I didn’t have so I substituted for leaf gelatine. Not entirely sure if this is a reasonable substitution and I had to guess the number of leaves required too… I think the sheer amount of guess work and hoping for the best resulted in terrible Turkish Delight, I take all the blame.

Having visited Turkey many many times, it’s one of my favourite places. So hot and so beautiful! I always enjoy sampling the local delicacies, rose and mint flavoured Turkish Delight are my favourites along with the apple tea of course! I wish I could make it properly at home.

Delightful

Pancakes anyone?

The recipe asked for the

sugar and water to be melted together

Then to add the gelatin…

Bring the syrup to the boil (no problem)

Then to let it simmer until it reached the soft ball stage. This is when you drop some of the mixture into cold water it forms a soft ball. If only I had a sugar thermometer it would take all of the guess work (fun) out of the experiment…

Soft ball stage?

The recipe called for Tartaric Acid. This is something I’ve never heard of, nor seen in any shops, ever. Rummaging in my cupboards I discovered Cream of Tartar. Surely this is the same thing, right? NO, It’s really really not. As soon as I added it to the syrup it shrank back dramatically into the pan, losing its white frothiness.

At this stage according to Marguerite it should be a lovely Turkish Delight consistency so you can add rose essence and pink food colouring…

Or how about a solid block of sugar? *curses*

I succeeded in making a solid block of pink sugar instead of lovely chewy transparent Turkish Delight. I refused to let this beat me, so tried to melt the block down again by adding more water. Now if I was trying to make Kendal Mint Cake, this would be perfect…

Solid Pink Sugar instead rather more like Kendal Mint Cake than Turkish Delight

Undeterred I found a different recipe for Lokum (Turkish Delight) that uses Cornflour rather than gelatin that I thought might be more traditional and easier to make. How easily deluded I am!

The alternative ingredients

A paste made from cornflour sugar and cream of tartar (looks delicious?)

Add the rose essence and food colouring once at the soft ball stage

Then supposedly once it’s reduced enough it should magically transform into Turkish Delight…

Pink rose jelly. No Delight in sight

I simply can’t figure it out! Is it me? Should I give up guessing and follow recipes properly? Should I buy a thermometer? Maybe I should give this one last try…