Turkish Delight as Irish Moss - recipe

Did I already tell you I like sweet things? Yeah?
And on those rare occasions when I'm allowed to have free reign in the kitchen - I make sweet treats - and according to the top chef of the kitchen - a mighty BIG mess too. But we get there...

Since my attempt at making pink Turkish Delight was successful, I decided to try mixing things up a bit and make Irish Moss. Well, it's what we call it in this corner of the world - not a piece of seaweed was used...

home made Irish Moss - liquorice jube

This is what you need:
* 400g sugar - 2 cups
* 35g (75ml) cornflour - 2 Tbl spoons/¼ cup
* 1ml (a pinch) of citric acid
* 200ml water

* 125g licorice - chopped
* 1 or 2 tots black Sambuca (optional)

* 6 teaspons powdered gelatine sprinkled onto 50mls water (or if you have leaf gelatine, use 12 sheets soaked in 400mls of water for 5 minutes before squeezing out the water)
black food colouring
50g cornflour (105mls)
50g icing sugar (95mls)


This is how you do it:
Rub/spray some rice bran oil (or canola/sunflower oil - you want an oil with very little flavour/taste) around a 12x12cm pan/dish/tin. Make sure your dish is at least 5cm deep...

Mix 400g sugar, 35g cornflour, pinch of citric acid and the chopped up licorice in 200mls of water and stir over a LOW heat until the sugar has dissolved. Sadly, you will never get the licorice to completely melt
Then cook this for 7 minutes (no need to use a temperature gauge - nice!)

boil for 7 minutes

Add the Sambuca (if you've chosen this. The alcohol content will boil away and leave you with just the essence,) and prepared gelatin
Mix this in and stir until the gelatine has melted
Then add some black food colouring until you have the desired shade of night (I've tried it with and without food coloring... and in this case, my preference is eating with my eyes first... it HAS to be black)
Simply pour this mix into your oil smeared pan and let it set/ cool down for a bit
(BUT - if you prefer a perfectly smooth jube without little bits of licorice, then push this mixture through a sieve first. And remember, this stuff is like molten lava at this stage, so be careful)

molten licorice jelly 

Slam it in the fridge for 4 hours at least (on a breadboard worked well for us - to absorb any residual heat and also keep the mix level)
prepare the 50g cornflour and 50g icing sugar by sifting it into a flat bottomed bowl (or into a plastic bag)
Sprinkle some over your breadboard
When you're ready to serve/package: dunk the underside of your pan in hot water for literally a few seconds so that it comes loose easily and goes straight onto your dusted breadboard - ready to be sliced into small blocks or cut into whatever shapes you desire
Roll these blocks of sweet goodness into your cornflour/icing sugar mix
Then enjoy


Turkish Delight as Irish Moss