Traditional Turkish Cypriot Lokma

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

Lokma
Now that we're in February it's no shock to anyone that the days are finally getting just a tad bit longer. Food bloggers will jump for joy at the extra hour or so that has landed on their doorstep and/or window ledge because its arrival means sharing more tarts, muffins, cakes or even a lobster. So why is it that come pre spring, my cameras contents is as dry as Ghandis flip flop?! But it's not the end of the world and the clock still moves forward regardless of one or seven less posts a month (I hate university).

A few weeks back me and mum transformed our kitchen into a Turkish bakery. She's a good few years out of practice so it was nice to bring those skills up a notch. Generally, Turkish sweets are soaked in sugar syrup, it's this component that gives these sweets their own unique and worldly flavour, right next to its Asian counterparts. Absolutely everything including fried pastries, gets plopped or covered in a huge saucepan of sugar, water and cinnamon stick then left to soak for ten minutes until the finished product is wet, slightly sticky and nothing short of bloody glorious.

Our minefield of goods were all lovely, but I thought I'd turn to this particular recipe for the blog because its bite size.  Just one wouldn't hurt.

PS. Please forgive the awful quality of these trendy insta pics, I've only had time to bake in the evenings and then off out again the morning so the Canon had no place here.

The recipe

Makes about 30 bite sized Lokmas 

Dough
14g active dried yeast
2 cups warm water
2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp corn flour
1 tsp salt
Vegetable oil for deep frying

Sugar syrup
3 cups white sugar
5 cups water
1 stick cinnamon

Note: Make the process a touch too traditional and use a standard drinking glass to measure the ingredients instead of measuring cups, works wonders I promise!

The Method:

Start with the sugar syrup - add the sugar, water and cinnamon stick to a large saucepan and leave on a medium high heat whilst you make the dough batter.

Add the warm water and yeast to a large bowl and stir until the yeast dissolves.

Add the flour, corn flour and salt to the mix and whisk until incorporated - about 3 minutes.

Cover the batter with a clean tea towel and let rest for 30 minutes to an hour until the batter had doubled in size. You can put it in the fridge if you want.

In the mean time add vegetable oil to a medium sized saucepan and heat until boiling point.

Now for the messy part. Using your hand grab some of the proved dough and squeeze until a small amount appears between your thumb and forefinger. Grab that slightly rounded bit of dough with a teaspoon and plop it into the hot oil.

The balls needs about half a minute each side, or until golden brown.

Once cooked, immediately immerse the balls in the sugar syrup and leave in their for as long as you want. Obviously, the more you leave the balls in there the more sweet and delicious they become!

Transfer the balls into a large bowl that has been lined with paper towels.

EAT when warm for the best Lokma experience.

Here are some other late night Turkish bits I've been instagramming:

Ricotta Borek
Aubergine Karni Yarik
Love Em xx

3 comments:

  1. The lokma sound delicious - better than asian sweets, they usually have red bean paste in which I'm not keen on!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. what on earth is red bean paste?! they are one of life's wonders im sure of it!

      Delete
  2. Hi I'm John from Fooduel.com. It is a site in which users vote recipes
    from 1 to 10.

    There is a ranking of the best recipes and a profile with your voted recipes. Each recipe has a link to the blog which belongs the recipe. This way you will get traffic to your blog

    It's easy, fast and fun. The best Photo recipes will be here.

    I invite you to enter, add your blog and upload a recipe with a nice photo.

    We would love that you participate with some recipe like this.Look Amazing!

    Regards

    http://www.Fooduel.com

    ReplyDelete

I love it when I receive comments, they really help shape my blog and I appreciate every single one :) Thank you!

Mbakes thanks you for taking the time to read her blog :)
Google+ Follow @mbakes_mbakes

mbakes All rights reserved © Blog Milk - Powered by Blogger