How can I make Turkish dondurma?
Turkish ice cream is called dondurma. Besides milk and sugar it also contains:
Salep- a flour made of ground orchids and
Mastic- a resin that produces a gum.
Because of these ingredients dondurma has a unique texture and flavor. The flavor is described as piney or floral while the texture is uniquely gummy. It melts very slowly because of the gum and sometimes it is thick enough to eat with a fork and knife.
Unfortunately, it seems like salep is rare and is no longer exported from Turkey.
My question is twofold:
Where can I find Salep and Mastic? My normal online sources have yielded nothing.
Are there more accessible ingredients that I can substitute to approximate dondurma?
Best Answer
Salep is essentially glucomannan; you can subsitutue Salep with Konjac GM (not konjac flour as it might impart a fishy flavor). And this is the key ingredient in Dondurma.
When it comes to mastic, you can try to omit it as it's mainly for flavor. Not all Turkish Dondurma is with mastic; you could simply use vanilla...
Note: I’ve made Dondurma simply like this, and it turned out almost as authentic as it was in Turkey.
Dry blend the sugar (10% of milk by weight) and KGM (0.6% of milk by weight) and whisk into cold milk.
Keep it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
In a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment beat the hot mixture for 20+ and until it cools down to room temperature.
Transfer to a bowl and put it into the freezer, every 30 minutes take out and whisky a bit, until it’s quite solid.
Keep it in the freezer for another 12 hours. And serve.
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How is Turkish dondurma made?
In addition to salep, the traditional dondurma recipe is based on goat's milk and sugar. In some parts of the country, Turkish dondurma is also made with an aromatic resin called gum mastic. This gum mastic is harvested from gum trees grown on the Aegean coast of Turkey and Greece.How is Turkish ice cream made?
Turks prepare Mara\u015f ice cream mostly from goat's milk, sugar, salep (wild orchid root powder), and mastic (aromatic resin). Turkey's Kahramanmara\u015f region first produced Turkish ice cream, hence it is known as Mara\u015f Ice Cream.What makes Turkish ice cream so special?
Two qualities distinguish Turkish ice cream: hard texture and resistance to melting, brought about by inclusion of the thickening agents salep, a flour made from the root of the early purple orchid, and mastic, a resin that imparts chewiness.What makes ice cream sticky?
Gumminess is related to the rheology of the unfrozen portion of ice cream, which in turn is related to the nature and degree of water immobilization. Although water immobilization is important to control ice crystal growth, a point is reached where the unfrozen product becomes sticky and very cohesive, i.e., gummy.Turkish Ice Cream “Dondurma” With 3 Ingredients | Legendary Stretchy Texture
More answers regarding how can I make Turkish dondurma?
Answer 2
This article from the BBC indicates that it's been illegal to export salep for quite a while.
This article indicates that cornflour is frequently used as a substitution for salep.
The same author makes four other interesting points about salep. First, the elastic quality of these ‘stretchy’ ice creams is not, as some writers state, due to the presence of mastic. It is true that mastic has elastic qualities and that it is often an ingredient of these ice creams. But it is there for flavouring purposes; the stretchiness of the ice cream is due to the salep which it contains.
Secondly, salep itself is almost tasteless and its thickening qualities are not readily distinguishable from those of arrowroot, potato starch, and cornflour. Indeed packets of ‘instant salep’ list cornflour as an ingredient, along with salep and sugar. The questions implicit in these observations leap to the mind; all the more so when one reflects that Claudia Roden (1985) considers that the substitution of cornflour for expensive salep is legitimate (and adds, incidentally, that Egyptians now commonly add grated coconut to the confection).
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Ylanite Koppens, Ylanite Koppens, Yan Krukov, Anna Shvets