Hi there,

As you may recall my last post on Turkish delight flavoured cupcakes. I bought a nice big bottle of rose water especially for them. They turned out so wonderfully and the flavour was amazing that I wanted to use my rose water for more goodness. The obvious choice was to make actual Turkish delight this time.

The smell of rose water reminds me of my first year of uni where I organised out hall ball. The theme was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and the museum atrium was turned into the Ice Queen's kingdom. As those who are familiar with the book will know, it is here where the Ice Queen gave Edmund some Turkish delight. So in keeping with the theme of the ball, I ordered 20kg(!!!) of Turkish delight from the local Turkish kebab shop and with the help of a few friends we packaged it all up into tiny cellophane bags with pretty organza bows to place at everyones table setting. We spend a good three nights packaging the stuff up and at the end of each packing session we were covered head to toe in the corn flour-icing sugar mixture. Opening my bottle of rose water and taking a whiff brought me right back to those nights.

I wanted to make this the proper way, with corn flour instead of using gelatine as the gelling agent. It requires an electric beater and a candy thermometer and it helps if you have at least 3 hands. The recipe I found was off this website by Titli Nahaan; Titli's Busy Kitchen. She had a video tutorial which was really helpful as it allowed me to see the exact colour and consistency that my sugar syrup and corn flour gloop needed to be.

I think I needed to cook my starch a little longer has my finished product is very soft and sticky. It was a good first attempt though.

I am not going to even attempt to write down a method here, just use the link and watch her video. Its step by step and fool proof.

Here is what you will need for it:

800g white sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon lemon juice

120g corn flour (I used maize cornflour)
2 cups cold water
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Red/pink food colouring
1 tablespoon of rose water

The ingredients are really very simple. Use this tutorial here for excellent instructions :)

If this seems like too much effort and stickiness (trust me, things get very sticky!) then pop down to your local kebab shop or international isle and pick up a box of it. Nom nom nom. I think I might use some of the runty pieces (which there are lots of) and pop them into the inside of my next batch of Turkish delight cupcakes.

TTFN!

As mentioned in my last post (which I posted like an hour ago) I have had a rather cupcake oriented day. Yes an hour later I am still in my pajamas. Yes it it 4pm on a Sunday. This is bad. Really bad. It's almost dinner time. For the record I did get up at 8am.

I had too many cupcake flavours that I wanted to try out at once. So I used Chris' thank you party for his helpers for the Cystic Fibrosis NZ street collection he organised to try two of them out.

The first one was the banoffee cupcakes and the second ones are these rose cupcakes. The recipe says they are rose but because they use rose water, just like Turkish delight, I associate them with being a Turkish delight flavour rather than a rose flavour.

I was really excited to buy some rose water, I found it in the international section of New World, City Centre. It was $8.99 for a 300ml bottle. A bit of a splurge if you are only just trying these out but I think it was well worth it. It lasts for ages and I plan on making Turkish delight in the holidays coming up. And once it is all gone you are left with a really really cool shaped bottle.

Flip I wish I could write essays as fast as I write blog posts.

This is really just a vanilla cupcake recipe that has two teaspoons of rose water added to the batter and 2 teaspoons added to the icing. Simple as!

Rose Cupcakes (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days)
Makes 12

40g butter, softened
140g castor sugar
120g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons rose water

Icing:
300g icing sugar
80g butter, softened
25ml whole milk
2 teaspoons rose water

A few drops of pink food colouring

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees bake (or 170 if your oven is fan forced). Line your muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Beat together your butter and sugar until all the butter lumps have been broken down and the consistency is even. Sieve in your flour and baking powder and beat until a sandy consistency is reached.

Add in your milk, vanilla and rose water, beat in. Next add your egg and beat until thick and smooth.

Fill your cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed.

Leave your cupcakes to cool a wee bit before transferring them to a cake rack or a clean tea towel.

Make sure your cupcakes are completely cold before you ice them.

Icing:

Cream the butter and sugar together with the addition of the milk to loosen it up. You may need more milk or icing sugar if the icing isn't thin or thick enough. Add in your rose water and food colouring and beat until smooth and fluffy. Make sure your icing is relatively stiff, you don't want it slopping off your cupcake and making a mess.

Insert the icing into a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle and swirl away! :)

Decorate with anything you wish :) I found those wee flowers at the supermarket.