Balikucha

Dark sugar boiled to a hard ball and then pulled by hand until it turns pale and opaque.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g dark muscovado sugar
• 150 ml water
• 1 tablespoon calamansi juice
• 0.25 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons oil, for the hands and the slab

Method

1. PULLED BY HAND UNTIL IT TURNS PALE. That is the whole transformation: the syrup goes in dark brown and translucent and comes out the colour of straw and opaque, because pulling folds air into it in fine layers. Unpulled, it is just hard toffee.
2. Sugar, water, calamansi and salt in a heavy pan. The acid is there to stop the sugar crystallising back; without it the whole batch can seize into grit.
3. Stir until dissolved, then STOP STIRRING and let it boil. From here a stir can start crystals. Wash any crystals off the pan wall with a wet brush.
4. Boil to 125C on a thermometer, or until a drop into cold water forms a ball you can roll between your fingers that holds its shape but still gives. 15 to 18 minutes.
5. Pour it onto a well-oiled marble slab or steel tray and leave it 4 to 5 minutes, folding the edges into the middle with an oiled scraper as they firm.
6. When you can just bear to touch it, oil your hands and start pulling: stretch it to arm's length, fold it in half, twist, and stretch again.
7. 8 to 10 minutes of this. It fights you more as it goes and lightens steadily. Stop when it is opaque and matt and almost too stiff to pull.
8. Pull the last of it into a rope 2 cm thick and cut it into 3 cm lengths with oiled scissors, working fast -- it sets hard within a couple of minutes.
9. Wrap each piece. Unwrapped they take up moisture and glue themselves together.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

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