The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: Turkish Delight

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: Turkish Delight

When I was younger one of my favourite book series was The Chronicles of Narnia, and my favourite of those was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (or LW+W as I’ll refer to it from now on – great book but hella long title!) As you may have noted by all the other books that have inspired me this month, anything based in a fantasy world or with mystical imagery will tick my box, and so the idea of a land cursed with eternal winter appealed to me from a young age.  Those of you who’ve read LW+W will know the reason why I chose Turkish Delight as my inspired creation for this week (and those of you who haven’t should read the book!) and although I wouldn’t say it’s worth-betraying-my-family-to-the-white-queen good, it’s still pretty tasty!

Turkish delight is one of those things that is really easy to make… if you know how to make it. Those of you following my Instagram may have seen my first attempt at this which ended up as a burnt, black sludge that was binned pretty quickly. After a few recipe tweaks though I’ve ended up with this which I think is pretty successful and pretty easy to get right.  I’ve used a 20cm square tin here to set the sweets in which has made them a little flatter than you’d normally find Turkish delight – but hey, as long as they taste good right? If you prefer yours as proper cubes though just use a smaller tin.

Recipe

Makes 24 squares

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp Cornflour
  • 2 tbsp Icing sugar
  • 9 Gelatine leaves
  • 450g Granulated sugar
  • Few drops of rosewater
  • Few drops of Pink food colouring

Method

  1. Lightly oil a 20cm square tin. Then line the tin with cling film. Mix together the cornflour and icing sugar in a bowl and then sift it into the tin. Move the tin around so the sugar mixture dusts the whole inside, then tip the excess out for later and place the tin to one side.
  2. Pour 300ml water into a large pan. Add the gelatine and leave it to soak for about 5 minutes, until soft and pliable.
  3. Place the pan over a medium heat and stir gently until the gelatine dissolves. Then add the sugar and continue to stir until the sugar dissolves (you shouldn’t be able to feel anything gritty on the bottom of the pan).
  4. Bring the mixture up to the boil and then reduce the heat to low and leave the mixture to simmer for 20 minutes.
  5. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the rose water and food colouring until the colour is even through the mix.
  6. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and then leave to set overnight.
  7. The next day sift a little of the icing sugar/cornflour mixture from earlier onto a board or plate. Turn the Turkish delight out onto the dusted surface and, using a sharp knife, cut the Turkish delight into strips and then squares about 3x3cm.
  8. Use the rest of the dusting mixture to coat all surfaces of the Turkish delight to stop it from sticking to everything, and then it’s ready to eat! These should be stored in an airtight container, probably between layers of baking paper or cling film to stop the layers from sticking together, for up to a week.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

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