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Turkish Candy
Boil together one cupful of water and one pound of sugar until it can be rolled in a soft ball when tested in cold water. While it is boiling, put five ounces of cornstarch into a bowl, measure out one cupful of cold water and stir enough of it into the cornstarch to mix to a thick paste; heat the remainder to the boiling point; pour it over the paste and stir until smooth and clear. Slowly add the hot syrup and cook for seven minutes, stirring constantly, then take from the fire and add one-quarter of a cupful of clear honey, one-quarter of an ounce of tartaric acid a (1 sufficient oil of lemon to flavor. Pour this into tins or moulds rubbed with olive oil and when cold, cut in squares and roll in powdered sugar. Chopped candied fruits, figs, raisins and nuts may also be added, stirring them in after taking from the fire.
This is Turkish delight (lokum) by its old American name, and the one thing the instructions understate is cooking time: seven minutes will not give you the translucent, chewy set that defines the sweet.
- Soft-ball stage"Rolled in a soft ball" when dropped into cold water is 235-240F on a candy thermometer. Boil the sugar and water to that point before it meets the starch.
- Cornstarch quantityFive ounces is by weight, roughly a cup plus two tablespoons of modern cornstarch. Mixing part of it with cold water first is what prevents lumps; do not skip that step.
- The seven minutesCooking the combined syrup and starch for only seven minutes leaves the mixture pale and starchy-tasting, and it may weep as it cools. Traditional lokum is held at a bare simmer, stirred, for 45 minutes to an hour, until it turns amber and translucent and pulls thickly from the spoon.
- Tartaric acidA quarter ounce is about two teaspoons, which is assertive; it is there to invert some of the sugar and keep the candy from crystallising as much as for flavour. Food-grade tartaric or citric acid from a brewing or baking supplier is the right thing.
- Oil of lemonEssential oil of lemon is far stronger than modern lemon extract. Three or four drops flavours this batch; add it off the heat, since the volatiles boil away.
- Moulds and settingAn oiled 8-inch square tin gives a good depth. The candy needs several hours and preferably overnight at room temperature to firm up; refrigeration makes it sticky and weeping.
- The dustingRoll the cut squares in a half-and-half mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch rather than sugar alone. Straight powdered sugar draws moisture out of the pieces and dissolves into a syrupy film within a day.
- Yield and keepingA batch of this size fills an 8-inch tin, cut into roughly 36 squares. Stored in a tin between layers of the sugar-starch dusting, it keeps a couple of weeks.
Lokum has been made in Istanbul since at least the late eighteenth century, and the confectioner Bekir Efendi is traditionally credited with popularising it there; English speakers met it as "Turkish delight" in the nineteenth century, when it arrived as a luxury import in boxes packed with powdered sugar. Recipes like this one appear in American household books of the 1890s and 1900s, when cornstarch was cheap and reliable and home candy-making was a fashionable domestic accomplishment. Like most period candy recipes, this one relies on the cold-water test rather than a thermometer, and needs no equipment beyond a heavy pan.