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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.

  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 begins to set, then stir in the chopped nuts.

  5. Pour the mixture into a greased round tin.

Set and serve

  1. Once fully set, turn out the jelly, cut into 1‑inch squares, and roll 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 liquid sugar syrup into a firm, sliceable jelly.
Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and helps the jelly hold its texture.
Almonds or pistachios
Adds crunch and nutty flavour against the soft jelly.
Orange and lemon juice
Adds acidity and citrus aroma that balance the sweetness.
Icing sugar
Coats the cut squares so they do not stick together.

The step that matters

Let the mixture sit until it begins to set before adding the nuts. If the jelly is still too hot or too runny, the chopped nuts sink to the bottom instead of staying evenly distributed. Waiting until it thickens slightly suspends them throughout the set 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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