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Dessert

Turkish Delight

A gelatinous confection made from sugar, citrus zest, and gelatine, layered with a red color and dusted with icing sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Make the syrup

  1. Combine ½ cup of water and the sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim, and wipe the sides of the pan with a damp cloth.

  3. Simmer slowly for 10 minutes.

  4. While simmering, thinly cut the rind of the orange and lemon, taking only the yellow part.

  5. Squeeze out the juice, strain it, and slowly add to the sugar mixture.

  6. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

  7. Warm the remaining ½ cup of water and dissolve the gelatine in it.

  8. Add this to the sugar mixture.

  9. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring to ensure all the gelatine is dissolved.

  10. Add the rinds to the mixture.

  11. Let it stand for 10 minutes to extract the flavor.

Set and colour

  1. Wet two plates with cold water.

  2. Strain half of the liquid onto one plate.

  3. Add a few drops of cochineal to the remaining half until it reaches a nice red color.

  4. Strain onto the other plate.

  5. Leave the plates for 12 hours.

Cut and finish

  1. Loosen the edges with a knife and pull off the Turkish delight, using a little cornflour on your fingers to prevent sticking.

  2. Place the red layer on top of the natural color.

  3. Cut into squares.

  4. Roll in cornflour.

  5. Leave for another 12 hours.

  6. Roll in icing sugar.

  7. To store, place in a tin box with plenty of 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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the syrup into a firm, sliceable gel with a tender bite.
Sugar
Forms the sweet syrup base and, when cooked, helps give the candy its body.
Orange
Adds citrus aroma from the rind and fresh flavour from the juice.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma from the rind and juice.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes, stirring to ensure all the gelatine is dissolved. Undissolved gelatine leaves grainy or lumpy spots and can stop the candy from setting evenly. Stirring during the boil spreads heat and fully dissolves the gelatine into the syrup.

“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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