Why did my Turkish Delight come out flavorless?

Question

Yesterday I made Turkish Delight, and today I cut it into squares and tasted it. This was the recipe:

• 330 ml liquid (apple juice, from freshly cold-pressed apples, strong flavor)
• A small amount of ascorbic acid, to prevent apple juice from browning
• 330 grams of sugar
• 25g powdered gelatin
• icing sugar

Steps:

• Boil sugar and liquid until at 115 degrees celsius
• Take off the heat
• Add gelatin, soaked in a bit of the liquid
• Let set in a cold environment
• Cut into pieces
• Dust with icing
• Enjoy

It has set fine, it's pretty beautiful and hasn't bled yet (making icing soggy) but perhaps in a while.

The problem is that it is UTTERLY tasteless. Before cooking the sugar solution, it tasted great, and had a beautiful green color. After cooking, it was almost tasteless and almost completely clear.

Why did the juice lose the flavor, and what can I do to prevent it? It happened before adding gelatin.

A bonus question: It took a while to reach 115 degrees, about half an hour. It seems that cooking to 115 was mostly a matter of reducing the solution so that the boiling point increased. Does the extended boiling have any other beneficial effects, or can I simply increase the sugar amount from the start and bring it to a boil?

Answer

First, I don't know where you people all get these gelatin-filled Turkish delight recipes. Turkish delight is made with starch, not gelatin (at least the recipes used in Turkey are all with refined starch or rice flour). What you are making here is jell-o (if you use small amounts of gelatin) or gummi bears (if you use lots of gelatin).

Second, about the taste. It is normal that fresh apple juice loses its taste when it is cooked. The normal Turkish delight tastes of sugar. Its aroma comes from strong aromas added to the liquid (rose essence, or artificial aroma). You don't preserve natural fruit tastes in Turkish delight. Even if you wanted to, I don't think there is a way to do it with apple juice. Some stronger tasting fruits (cherries, raspberries) could give a syrup with more taste, but are not part of traditional lokum.

Third, about the temperature. Your observation is correct, you are just evaporating the liquid. In some cases, it might be desirable to start with more liquid and evaporate, so you get more concentrated aroma - for example, if you have started with pure rose water. But if you are making a recipe which requires concentrated sugar syrup, it is OK to start with a ratio which creates saturated syrup at room temperature (3 parts sugar to 2 parts water) and cook until the desired consistency is reached (this is recognizable from the boiling point).

For most recipes however, you don't want a concentrated syrup. The candy hardness is defined by the amount of starch used. In this case, you just mix everything and you are ready after it has bubbled, just like any pudding. The amount of sugar seems to be 1 part sugar to 2 parts water.

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