Macun

Five flavours are cooked as five separate pastes and never mixed — they are wound onto the stick side by side.

Vegan.

Ingredients

the base, made five times over

• 1 kg granulated sugar
• 300 g glucose syrup
• 300 ml water
• 2 teaspoons citric acid

the five flavourings, one per batch

• 1 teaspoon lemon extract with yellow colouring
• 1 teaspoon rose extract with pink colouring
• 1 teaspoon mint extract with green colouring
• 1 teaspoon bergamot extract with orange colouring
• 1 teaspoon plum extract with purple colouring

to serve

• wooden sticks

Method

1. FIVE FLAVOURS ARE COOKED AS FIVE SEPARATE PASTES AND NEVER MIXED. This is the dish. The base is divided into five, each portion flavoured and coloured differently, and each is set in its own compartment of a wide shallow tray -- usually a round one divided into wedges. They sit side by side as five distinct coloured pastes and are never combined in the pan. A single batch of mixed flavours, however nice, is simply a toffee; the array is what makes this what it is, because of how it is served.
2. IT IS WOUND ONTO A STICK, A STRIPE FROM EACH COMPARTMENT. A flat blade is drawn through one colour and the thread that comes up is wound round the end of a wooden stick; then the next colour, and so on, so the stick ends up wrapped in a striped spiral of all five. That is the portion, and the paste has to be the right consistency for it: stiff enough to hold a thread, soft enough to stretch and wind without snapping.
3. THE CONSISTENCY IS THE SOFT-BALL STAGE AND NOT A DEGREE FURTHER. 115 to 118°C -- the stage where a drop in cold water forms a ball that flattens between the fingers. Taken to hard-ball or crack, it sets into a glassy sweet that shatters instead of winding; left short, it is a syrup that will not hold on the stick at all. A sugar thermometer is close to essential.
4. THE GLUCOSE SYRUP IS WHAT KEEPS IT PLIABLE FOR DAYS. Three hundred grams to a kilo of sugar. Glucose interferes with crystal formation, so the paste stays soft and stretchy in the open tray instead of setting hard overnight -- which it must, because it is served from the tray over hours.
5. THE CITRIC ACID DOES THE SAME JOB AND ALSO THE SOURNESS. Two teaspoons. It inverts some of the sugar, which further resists crystallising, and it gives the sharp edge that keeps the sweetness from being sickly.
6. THE FLAVOURINGS GO IN OFF THE HEAT AND ARE SMALL. One teaspoon per batch. They are volatile, so they go in once the pan is off the flame and are stirred just enough to distribute -- overworked, the paste starts to crystallise at the edges.
7. THE COMPARTMENTS ARE OILED BEFORE THE PASTE GOES IN. Lightly, each one. The paste releases from oiled metal under a blade and welds to bare metal.
8. The sugar, glucose syrup and water heated together, swirled not stirred, until the sugar dissolves.
9. Boiled to 115 to 118°C -- the SOFT-BALL stage, where a drop in cold water forms a ball that FLATTENS between the fingers.
10. The citric acid stirred in and the pan taken OFF THE HEAT.
11. DIVIDED INTO FIVE equal portions, quickly, into five bowls.
12. ONE flavouring and colouring stirred into each -- just enough to distribute.
13. Each poured into its own LIGHTLY OILED compartment of a wide shallow tray. The five NEVER MIXED.
14. Left to cool to a thick pliable paste, about 1 HOUR.
15. TESTED: a blade drawn through should lift a THREAD that stretches and winds without snapping. Shattering means it went past soft-ball; running means it did not reach it.
16. SERVED by drawing a stripe from each compartment in turn and winding it onto a wooden stick.

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.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes