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Dessert

Turkish Delight

A gelatinous confection made with sugar, citrus zest, nuts, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Turkish Delight

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the gelatine in cold water.

  2. Blanch the almonds or pistachios and chop them coarsely.

  3. Remove the rinds of the orange and lemon in thin strips.

Make the jelly

  1. In a saucepan, combine the loaf sugar, water, and the strained juice of the orange and lemon with the rinds.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the gelatine and simmer until dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture into a bowl and stir in the rum.

  4. Let the mixture sit until it is about to set, then stir in the chopped nuts.

  5. Pour the mixture into a wetted round tin.

Set and serve

  1. Once set, turn the jelly out, cut it into 1-inch square pieces, and roll them in icing sugar.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the sugar syrup into a firm, sliceable jelly with a tender bite.
Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and, when cooked, the body that holds the jelly together.
Almonds or pistachios
Add crunch and nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft jelly.
Icing sugar
Coats the cut pieces, keeping their sticky surfaces from clumping together.

The step that matters

Adding the nuts as the mixture thickens. If the mixture is stirred in too early the nuts sink, and if it has set too far they cannot be evenly mixed in. Timing the addition while it is just beginning to set keeps the nuts suspended throughout the jelly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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