Turkish Delight - The French Alternative

Jackie aroused Sultan Bryan's interest with some homemade Turkish Delight. This sexy sweet is delicious, low in cholesterol and nothing like the horrible jelly-like substance you find in boxes of chocolates.

Ingredients

Sugar syrup

• 4 cups caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 2 cups dark grape juice
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon rosewater
  

Cornflour mixture

• 1 cup cornflour
• 2 cups dark grape juice
  

Coating

• 1/4 cup cornflour
• 3/4 cup pure icing sugar (not icing mixture)
  

Method

1. Start with two large saucepans: one for the sugar mixture and the other for the cornflour mixture.
2. For the sugar mixture: put the caster sugar, cream of tartar, 2 cups of grape juice and lemon juice into one saucepan.
3. For the cornflour mixture: put the cornflour into the second saucepan and carefully mix in 1/2 a cup of the grape juice. Stir until the lumps are gone, then add the other 11/2 cups of grape juice.
4. Turn the heat on under the sugar mixture.
5. Turn on the heat under the cornflour saucepan and stir until the mixture thickens. This only takes a minute or two. Remove from the heat.
6. Cook the sugar syrup until a little sets like toffee on a saucer, then take it off the heat.
7. Gradually add the hot sugar syrup to the cornflour mixture. Stir over a very low heat until the mixture is simmering. Leave it to simmer gently for about an hour. You will need to stir it every now and than; as it starts to thicken it will need to be stirred much more often, until finally you are stirring all the time.
8. The mixture will get thicker and thicker. Keep going till you really think it can't get any thicker and every time you stir most of it clings in a thick ball to the spoon.
9. Take off the heat and add the rosewater.
10. Pour the mixture onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper and leave for about 3 hours to set.
11. To coat the Turkish Delight, mix the cornflour and icing sugar together in a bowl. Scoop up spoonfuls of Turkish Delight and roll them into the cornflour and icing mixture.
12. Store in a sealed container with a little of the cornflour and sugar mixture. Turkish Delight will keep for weeks, but will probably be gobbled up before that.      

Copyright CTC Productions 2000