Chapter:
Oriental sweets
2nd page of the section

Classic sweets
Part 2
Turkish Delight, Shaker Delight

These desserts are airy and literally melt in your mouth, and therefore will appeal to the most fastidious sweet tooth.

FROM THE HISTORY
Turkish delight (a modified Arabic name meaning "sweetness for the throat") is one of the most famous oriental delicacies. In the West, it received the eloquent name "Turkish Delight". (Turkish Delight - colorful boxes with such inscriptions are sold everywhere, both in Turkey and in European supermarkets.) The Turks themselves call these fragrant soft sweets "lokum".
The recipe for Turkish delight at the end of the 18th century was compiled by the Turkish confectioner Ali Mahiddin Bekir. He allegedly set to work at the request of the Sultan, who was tired of chewing hard sweets.
According to another version, the Sultan ordered the best confectioners of the Ottoman Empire to prepare a new dessert to please his numerous wives.
As a result of culinary experiments, a soft, tender delicacy appeared, the preparation of which is not difficult, but requires some patience. Ali Mahiddin mixed hot sugar syrup with starch dissolved in water and poured the resulting mixture into a flat mould, greased with oil. After waiting for the viscous mass to harden, Ali Mahiddin cut it into pieces and sprinkled it with powdered sugar.
A simple recipe, as often happens, became the basis for further experiments. To cater to different tastes, honey, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, cinnamon, lemon zest, fruits and chocolate were added to Turkish delight.
Modern confectioners, reverently related to tradition, try to use only rose water in the preparation of delicacies, as in the original recipe.
Ali Mahiddin gained wide popularity in the Turkish capital. In the center of Istanbul, he opened a small shop, which is still owned by his descendants.
Turkish Delight quickly gained popularity and was sold throughout the Ottoman Empire and beyond. It has become a familiar component of the cuisine of the Balkan and Middle Eastern countries.
In the 19th century, it was brought to Western Europe, where the Turkish delicacy, perfect for tea, was especially fond of the British.

TECHNOLOGICAL Trick
To prevent Turkish delight from getting wet during storage, it is first rolled in starch, and then in powdered sugar.

RAHAT LUKUM CITRUS

Ingredients :
5 cups sugar, 2 cups water, 1/2 cup starch, zest from 1 orange or lemon, 2-3 drops lemon or orange oil, 4-5 tbsp. spoons of powdered sugar.

Cooking

Dissolve the starch in 1 cup of cold water and stir well so that there are no lumps. Pour sugar into a saucepan with the remaining water, stirring occasionally, bring to a boil and cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes.
After that, with a strong boil of sugar syrup, pour in the starch solution, reduce the heat, add the finely grated zest of a lemon or orange and, stirring constantly, cook until the mass thickens.
When the Turkish delight lags behind the walls of the dish, add citrus oil, mix again and put the dish on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or in molds, level, flatten the surface with a wet spoon and let cool for 4-5 hours.
Cut the finished dessert into squares, roll in powdered sugar and serve to the table, putting it in a vase.

RAHAT LUKUM ALMOND

Ingredients :
3 cups sugar 6 cups water 3 cups cornstarch 1/2 cup blanched almonds 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Cooking

Cut the shelled almonds into halves. Dilute starch with cold water (3 cups), stir so that there are no lumps, and leave for a while.
Pour sugar into the pan, pour it with the remaining water and, stirring from time to time, bring to a boil, removing the foam. After that, pour in, stirring quickly, the starch solution, add the almonds and, stirring constantly, boil until the mass thickens.
Then put the Turkish delight on a tray with high sides or on a baking sheet, form a rectangular layer 2-2.5 cm thick with hands moistened with cold water or a spoon and let it harden.
After that, cut the Turkish delight into small pieces, roll in powdered sugar, put in a vase or on a plate and serve.

RAKHAT LUKUM STUFFED

Ingredients :
4 cups sugar, 4 cups water, 3 tbsp. tablespoons of starch, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 cup of peeled almonds, 1/2-1 cup of powdered sugar.

Cooking

Almonds (you can replace it with hazelnuts or roasted and peeled peanuts) are strung on threads 15-20 cm long, tying a match to the lower end of the thread so that the nuts hold. Starch pour 1 cup of cold water, stir and leave for a while.
Pour sugar into a saucepan with water and boil water over high heat, removing the foam if necessary, then, stirring constantly, pour in the starch solution and continue cooking until the mass begins to lag behind the walls of the dish. Then put the pan in a water bath so that the Turkish delight remains warm all the time, lower the nuts, alternately strung on threads, into it, immediately remove and wait until the mass hardens on them.
Repeat this procedure several times, building up the layer of Turkish delight to the desired thickness (the Turkish delight in the pan should remain warm).
Leave the stuffed lokum for several hours to dry completely, and then carefully, holding a match, pull out the threads.
Roll the resulting pieces in powdered sugar, put on a plate or in a vase and serve as a dessert.

RAHAT LUKUM VANILLA

Ingredients :
1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 1 cup cornstarch, 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/5 teaspoon vanilla, citric acid at the tip of a knife.

Cooking

After mixing sugar with water, prepare a syrup (to improve the gelling process, you can add a little gelatin to it), pour starch into it and boil it, adding citric acid and vanillin at the end.
After cooking, pour the resulting cooled mass into trays lined with parchment paper, let the mass thicken and after 4 hours cut into rectangular pieces, roll them in powdered sugar and place in a dry cardboard box.
To add color and taste to Turkish delight, you can add a little fruit and berry juice or syrup.

RAKHAT LUKUM "ASSORTED"

Ingredients :
4 cups sugar, 1 liter of water, 100 g of rice, wheat or corn starch, 3-4 tbsp. spoons of fruit syrup, 1/2 cup of any shelled nuts, 2 teaspoons of lemon or orange peel, 1/4 teaspoon of saffron or turmeric, 1 packet of vanilla sugar, 100 g of powdered sugar.

Cooking

Prepare the nuts: divide the walnuts into quarters, roasted and peeled peanuts and almonds into halves. Dissolve starch in a glass of cold water. Pour the remaining water into a copper basin, add sugar and cook, removing the foam, until the syrup becomes transparent.
After that, with a strong boil, pour in the starch solution and, continuously stirring with a wooden spoon, cook over low heat until thickened. Then, still stirring, alternately add fruit syrup, saffron or turmeric, nuts and zest and continue to cook until semi-solid, stirring all the time so that the delight does not burn.
After that, put it on a baking sheet or tray with a layer of 2-2.5 cm and cool for 3-4 hours.
Serve in a bowl, cut into squares and sprinkled with a mixture of vanilla and icing sugar.

RAHAT LUKUM RICE

Ingredients :
1 incomplete glass of rice, 1 liter of water, 3 cups of sugar, 1 cup of orange, apricot or peach juice, 1 cup of powdered sugar.

Cooking

Rinse the rice, dry it, pour it into a pot of boiling water and boil it so that the cereal is completely boiled. Pour the juice into another bowl, add sugar, stir and cook, stirring constantly and removing the foam, for 40 minutes until the state of "thin thread".
Rub the rice cooked to a pasty state through a sieve, combine with fruit syrup and, stirring constantly, continue to cook over low heat until the mass lags behind the walls of the dish.
After the lokum has cooled down a bit, put it on a board or baking sheet in the form of a layer as thick as a finger, trim the edges, sprinkle generously with powdered sugar on top and leave to harden for 24 hours.
Cut the finished lokum into squares, roll them in powdered sugar and serve in a vase.

Turkish Delight "ROSE OF THE EAST"

Ingredients :
3 art. tablespoons of starch, 4 cups of water, 4 cups of sugar, 2 tbsp. spoons of cherry or raspberry syrup, 1-2 drops of rose oil, 20 g of butter or margarine, 1/2 cup of powdered sugar.

Cooking

Pour starch with cold water (1 cup), stir and set aside. Pour sugar into a saucepan with water and bring the sugar syrup to a boil over high heat, periodically removing the foam. Then, stirring constantly, pour in the starch solution and continue to cook until the mass begins to lag behind the walls of the dish.
After that, remove the Turkish delight from the heat, add cherry or raspberry syrup and rose oil, mix well, put on a baking sheet greased with butter, mold into a rectangular layer 2-3 cm thick and leave for 3-4 hours in a cool place.
When the lokum hardens, cut it into small pieces, roll them in powdered sugar, put in a vase and serve with tea.

SHAKER-LUKUM

Ingredients :
1.5 cups wheat flour, 4 tbsp. tablespoons melted butter, 2/3 cup powdered sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of cognac, 1/4 teaspoon of saffron.

Cooking

Pour saffron with cognac and stir. Grind melted butter until white. Grind the raw yolks with powdered sugar, add melted butter and cognac with saffron, mix well, add the sifted flour and knead the dough. Put it in the refrigerator for 7-10 minutes, then form into balls the size of a walnut and flatten them slightly to make thick cakes.
Put them on a baking sheet, put in a preheated oven and bake on low heat for 7-10 minutes.
Put the finished products on a dish or plate and serve with tea.

It turns out that 100 years ago there was already a problem of food additives and artificial colors and their replacement of natural ingredients. So really - "nothing new under the sun."

"COOKING REAL TURKISH RAHAT LUKUM"
Article from the journal "Bulletin of the Imperial Russian Society of Horticulture" for 1902

Turkish delight, which is a favorite national delicacy throughout the Balkan Peninsula, is in fairly wide demand in Russia as well. But the product found in trade under this name is not always imported, original, but is often produced in Odessa, by Greeks and Turks-migrants, who make it in a handicraft way. It should be noted, however, that industrialists do not treat the production of Turkish delight with due care, and therefore it is much more desirable to prepare this wonderful delicacy at home, especially since its manufacture is extremely simple and does not require any special costs. Having also received requests from some readers regarding the preparation of Turkish delight, we decided to let them know all the secrets of this production, especially since a good product will always find a sale in any fruit store.

The necessary utensils for the preparation of Turkish delight can always be found in any household and comes down to a simple enameled cauldron, which can be replaced by a brass basin from under the jam. In addition, you need some other vessel for diluting starch and a thin hair (so-called silk) sieve for sifting powdered sugar. Finally, for the manufacture of real fruit Turkish delight, a second hair sieve is used, woven into a double thread and distinguished by its strength. If the product is produced in large sizes for an industrial purpose, then it is more profitable to buy a rubbing machine for rubbing the fruit mass, which greatly speeds up and facilitates the work. Finally, for pouring sheet Turkish delight, tin sheets with rims are also used, which should not be used for other purposes, especially for roasting.

As for the constituent parts used in the aforementioned production, they are reduced to the following products.

Starch: the main condition for obtaining a good, transparent Turkish delight is to use the purest wheat starch. Real wheat starch, examined under a microscope, appears as small grains bound together by gluten. To the naked eye, it appears in the form of oblong prismatic columns with sharp edges (radiant or crystalline starch) or in the form of irregularly shaped pieces. The latter type of it contains a slightly larger amount of gluten, and therefore is especially suitable for the purposes of interest to us. A very good product is also obtained from rice starch, while the cheapest is made from potato starch.

Sugar: used in the case of the head, the highest dignity, part of it turns into the smallest powder and is sifted through a silk sieve. Stocks of fine sugar should be kept in a tin or bottle with a ground stopper, making sure that they do not become damp.

For flavoring Turkish delight of the highest grades, various varieties of fruit purees, rubbed through a sieve, are used. Very hard fruits require preliminary softening by blending in water. In medium grades, puree is not put at all, they are replaced entirely by aromatic fruit essences and essential oils, and Turkish delight has to be slightly tinted with harmless confectionery paints. All these formulations can be purchased at large pharmacy stores. The best grades of paint are French, from the Breton factory, which have a significant concentration and are therefore the cheapest. The most commonly used red paint can also be made at home, for which you should buy 4 parts of cochineal and grind it in a porcelain mortar with 1 part by weight of tartaric acid and dilute everything gradually with 60 parts of filter water. Then everything is boiled well and stored in a tightly corked bottle.

For the filling of Turkish delight, peeled almonds are used, and for some varieties - peeled nuts or pistachios, strung like a rosary on strong linen threads. Before use, fruits should be carefully sorted, smaller ones should be selected from large ones and each size should be strung separately. Both almonds and pistachios should be immersed in cold water immediately after peeling to prevent them from turning black.

Finally, in the highest grades of Turkish delight, it is advised to add at least a small amount of gum tragacanth or gelatin. If you cook the product on starch alone, then you would have to brew the mass too thickly, which must inevitably respond to the tenderness of the finished Turkish delight, gum and gelatin give it a certain lightness, especially appreciated by lovers. Both named glues are diluted to smoothness in water and poured into the welded mass.

As for the process of making Turkish delight, it is as follows: after weighing the required amount of starch (about 5 lots), it is poured with 2 glasses of cold water and allowed to stand for a while. Then the syrup is boiled from 2 cups of water and 2 pounds of sugar, it is carefully cleaned of foam, and when the syrup becomes completely transparent, then the starch diluted to smoothness is poured into it, stirring relentlessly. When the mass is so boiled down that it lags behind the edges and walls of the vessel, then it is removed from the fire, colors and aromas are added, kneaded well until smooth and poured onto the prepared sheet, after which it is taken out to the cold. When the mass hardens and hardens well, then it is cut into pieces and rolled more carefully in powdered sugar.

Stuffed Turkish Delight is molded somewhat differently.

The mass here is cooked a little thinner, the boiler with it is placed in another vessel with boiling water so that it remains warm all the time. Threads with strung almonds are lowered alternately into the mass and immediately they are suspended until the mass hardens on them. Then, the remaining mass is heated, gently stirred and the threads with almonds are again lowered into it. This is repeated until the Turkish delight acquires the proper thickness, then it is allowed to dry thoroughly and, carefully pulling the thread from the middle, the resulting cylindrical pieces are rolled in powdered sugar.

Here are some tried and tested recipes for making Turkish Delight.

APPLE RAHAT LUKUM:
Take 2 pounds of Antonov apples, cut them into circles with the skin on, add half a pound of sugar, a few tablespoons of water, simmer in a saucepan with a lid, rub through a sieve. Separately boil syrup from 2 pounds of sugar and 1 bottle of water, add applesauce and season everything with 5 lots of rice or wheat starch, reduce to the desired thickness. You can take only 4 lots of starch and add a few leaves of dissolved gelatin. After removing the mass from the heat, pour 2-3 drops of lemon oil into it, if desired, and proceed further, as explained above. This Turkish delight is not tinted with anything. In exactly the same way, a product made from black currants, apricots, etc. is brewed.

STRAWBERRY AND RASPBERRY RAHAT LUKUM:
Prepared according to the previous recipe, but the berries for them are not shaded, but wiped raw. The mass requires a light touch-up in red with cochineal solution.

ALMOND RAHAT LUKUM
It is prepared as the previous ones, but the fruit mass is not put into it, the mass is flavored after cooking with a few drops of bitter almond oil. This addition must be made with great care, because due to the hydrocyanic acid contained in it, this oil can be a strong poison. It is therefore necessary to buy exclusively only the most expensive variety of it, and, moreover, in stores that are completely trustworthy, on which you can fully rely on them to give a well-refined product.

In exactly the same way, Turkish delight is prepared vanilla (tinted pale pink), lemon (tinted yellow with saffron) and pink, and the corresponding oils and essential essences are added. Finally, according to the same recipe, you can cook all commercial varieties of Turkish delight with the aroma of various fruits and berries, and they are tinted in the appropriate colors.
Be especially careful when sprinkling the mass with fine sugar, otherwise it will stretch and stick to your fingers and to the bottom of the box. Usually sprinkled pieces of Turkish delight are allowed to stand for several days in a warm room, and then they are again rolled in sugar and put into storage.

TURKISH DELIGHT
In a tinned copper dish with a convex bottom, sugar and water (1/2 l) are heated to a boil. Wheat or maize (corn) starch is diluted in cold water (1/2 l). Separately, in cold water, a cremortator is diluted (1/4 cup) (a white powder that prevents crystallization; sold at a pharmacy). When the sugar syrup boils, add cold water (1/2 l), diluted creamer, starch to it, stirring along the bottom of the dish with a wooden spatula. This mixture, without ceasing to stir, is boiled to a semi-solid state, put fruit supply or candied fruits, vanilla or essence into it, paint over with food paint, mix thoroughly and spread on a wooden tray or sheet, cool, then cut into small rectangles.
For 1 kg of granulated sugar - 150 g of starch, 3 g of a creamer, 20 g of candied fruit or fruit supply, 1/2 g of vanilla, 20 drops of essence.

TURKISH DELIGHT
For syrup: 1 kg sugar, 300 g water.
For starched milk: 100 g of rice, wheat or corn starch, 200 g of cold boiled water.
For sprinkling Turkish Delight: 100 g of powdered sugar, 1 cm of vanilla stick or a bag of vanilla sugar.
For cooking Turkish Delight: 3-4 st. spoons of syrup from jam or fruit puree, 2 teaspoons of lemon or orange peel, 1 drop of rose oil or 1 teaspoon of rose syrup (see above), 100 g of peeled nuts (almonds, hazelnuts), 1 pinch of saffron or turmeric.
Cooking:
1. Boil sugar syrup in a cauldron or a copper basin, pour starch milk (a mixture of water and starch) into it at a strong boil and, reducing the heat, stir all the time with a wooden spoon until the mass thickens.
2. Add the remaining ingredients in the following order: fruit puree, spices, rose oil, nuts, agar-agar. Cook until semi-solid, all the while stirring with a spoon along the bottom of the cauldron, preventing the mass from burning.
3. Pour the finished mass into a wooden baking sheet with a layer of 2.5 cm, let it harden for 3-4 hours, then cut into square pieces and sprinkle with powdered sugar with vanilla.

TURKISH DELIGHT

The name Turkish delight is perhaps no less famous when it comes to oriental sweets than halva. And Turkish delight is no less ancient dish. Like halva, there are many variants of it, like halva, Turkish delight was prepared by special kandalachi chefs. Most likely, the birthplace of Turkish delight is Türkiye. We suggest you try two versions of Turkish Delight: with pistachios and fruit.

For Turkish delight with pistachios, take three and a half cups of granulated sugar, 1 cup of water, 1 cup of potato starch, 300 - 400 grams of pistachios and a little citric acid. Boil sugar with water, add starch and cook until thickened. Add citric acid at the very end. Let's take a flat form and pour about half of the pistachios into it, fill it with the resulting mass (in fact, it is called Turkish delight), sprinkle the remaining pistachios on top and let it cool. Turkish delight is served cut into oblong pieces.

For fruit Turkish delight, take again three and a half cups of granulated sugar, 1 cup of potato starch, 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar, vanillin, citric acid and fruit molasses. Boil sugar together with one glass of water, add starch and cook until thickened. At the very end, add fruit molasses, vanilla and citric acid. Then we merge the mass into a flat shape and let it harden. Turkish delight is also served cut into pieces and sprinkled with powdered sugar.