The Art Of The Turkish Delight
Want to make the best Turkish Delights? Well, not so fast my friend! These delicious treats require extraordinary patience to master. Please consider this blog post as a “sweet warning” before embarking on your own unique journey of mastering the art of the Turkish Delight. I will provide you not a recipe, but something more important — my own story in how I reached “lokum nirvana” with JuJu Turkish Delights.
Let’s rewind to 2018 — I just quit my bartending job in order to pursue “The Turkish Coffee Therapy” full-time here in NYC. But I was desperately frustrated. To offer generic brand name Turkish Delights to my customers along side their Turkish coffee felt sacrilegious. “I must learn how to make these myself,” I said.
I watched every single video on YouTube about Turkish Delight making. And guess what? They are all bogus. Even Babish’s famous Turkish Delight tutorial is absolutely flawed (PS: Babish himself referring to the candies admits how greatly he “dislikes this” — click here to 2:50 mark to hear the remark). You can’t make this stuff up. But to be frank, Babish is not the only one making “bad Turkish Delights”.
Companies such as “Haci Bekir” & “Hazer Baba”, though widely respected in Turkey (albeit with a blind fervor), have faced a steep decline in quality over the years in order to cater to the masses. These candies are highly saccharine, hard in texture, and worst of all, contain artificial flavoring. They’re made quickly, and sold fast. For instance, each batch of JuJu Turkish Delights (vegan + gluten free using only natural flavors) are aged for up to 3 weeks before being powdered, cut up, and packaged up. Why? Continue, and I will tell you.
Turkish Delight making is chemistry, but there is also a soul element to this sweet endeavor. You have to be one with the Turkish Delight. Yes, kind of like the movie “Being John Malkovich”. Understand its mood from the smell, appearance, and warmth it emanates. This requires countless hours of standing with the Turkish Delight, as you fail time after time. Yes, you must fail in order to know how the Turkish Delight is made. There is no other way around it, you will not make it right on the first go — and that is OK.
OK. I just bummed myself out sounding so discouraging, so let me take a step back and reward you with a piece of information that will take you very far.
As you know, the Turkish Delight is comprised of 3 major ingredients.
Sugar
Corn Starch
Citric Acid
Now listen carefully. Sugar gives weight & flavor to your candy, corn starch puffs up the texture, and citric acid helps to preserve shelf-life & cut through the thickness created by corn starch. You will not read this anywhere, I repeat. Sugar gives weight & flavor to your candy, corn starch puffs up the texture, and citric acid helps to preserve shelf-life & cut through the thickness created by corn starch. Take very good note 🙏 I will not tell you my recipe, but I will tell you this.
So go on ahead, start with any old recipe you find on the internet and continue building on it. I assure you — the true masters do not reveal their recipes. A master’s recipe is symbolic to one’s time, patience, and endurance. Even if I show you, it’s like learning an instrument. You can play the same notes as me, but you won’t play the fiddle like me! I promise you this.
Lastly, I want to say : there is no right or wrong way of making the Turkish Delights. Yes, you heard me. If anybody ever tries to tell you that this is the way you should do it, look at them in the face, and just say goodbye. Simple.
A prominent CEO of a boutique Turkish Delight company in Turkey once threw a JuJu Turkish Delight at me asking “Is this what you call Turkish Delight? Stop with this business. It is not for you.” This was 3 years ago when I was first starting out. Obviously, discouraging behavior from those presiding over us can be very deterring for any fledgling candy maker. So kindly allow every asshole you meet in life to fuel your motivation in reaching “candy nirvana” — yes, you heard it. I have since held multiple “Turkish Delight blind tasting events” between JuJus and the Turkish Delights of the same man, and the winner? I will not give names for the sake of retaining a modicum of class.
So don’t give up and never listen to what anyone tells you to do — and always remember, sugar gives weight & flavor to your candy, corn starch puffs up the texture, and citric acid helps to preserve shelf-life & cut through the thickness created by corn starch.
