{Summer Reading} The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

We recently finished the second book on our summer reading list, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. My children loved this book and want us to read all of the books in the series. With the exception of one night, I read two chapters each night but the kids wanted me to read more. My oldest daughter would say, “We can’t stop now we’re just getting to a good part.” 🙂

Really, what’s not to love about a book that combines adventure, a little bit of scariness, good vs. evil, kids as the heroes, and the good guys winning in the end?

The baby didn’t get a lot out of the book, but she was with us during our nightly reading time. She may not have understood the story, but she was learning how to enjoy books.

When we finished reading the book we did watch the movie to compare it to the book. There were some differences, but the kids loved it as much as the book.

We also decided to make Turkish Delight since Edmund loved it so much. I have never had Turkish Delight so I had nothing to compare it with.

We decided to make two recipes and see which we liked best.

The first recipe was part of a set of lapbook printables from Homeschool Share. If you click on the link just scroll down until you see”Turkish Delight”. The recipe will automatically download when you click the link.

While I can’t post the recipe, I thought I would show you a few pictures of the process.

1. The first step is to combine the sugar (I used evaporated cane juice.), cornstarch, and water. Then you add the cream of tartar and whisk it all.
2. Next, we were to bring the mixture to a boil. Here is where the recipe didn’t make as much sense. It said to boil it until it was 220 degrees which is supposed to be the soft ball stage. However, my cookbooks say 234-240 degrees is the soft ball stage. The recipe also said to cover for the last 5 minutes. It wouldn’t have stayed at 220 if I had boiled it for 5 minutes. I decided not to cover the mixture and to boil it until it was about 240 degrees. I am not sure how this affected our end product in comparison to the original.
3. We then added the flavoring and coloring.
4. Finally, we poured it into a pan lined with oiled plastic wrap.

We let the mixture cool until the next day. It was VERY sugary and hard, but not like brittle. It wasn’t soft and chewy like what was described in the book. Also, our Turkish Delight was about half as tall as the picture that was with the recipe. So, I am not sure exactly what we did wrong. I am guessing it has something to do with the fact that we didn’t cover the pot for 5 minutes.

Recipe Notes: We used strawberry flavoring that I found at Walmart in the spice aisle. The recipe didn’t say how many drops of food coloring to use, so we used 5. Also, we didn’t add any nuts.

The next recipe we tried was from Sprinkle Bakes. I decided that we would only make 1/2 of a batch (great math lesson). The recipe requires the use of a microwave. While I am not big on cooking foods in the microwave, I thought it might be easier for my kids to make. Let me just say that the way it turned out for Sprinkle Bakes wasn’t quite how ours turned out.

1. The first thing to do is mix the water and cornstarch together and microwave it.
2. Then you whisk and microwave again. It started getting thick at this point.
3. Next, we added the sugar and corn syrup and whisked again.
4. More microwaving and more whisking.

5. Still more microwaving and more whisking.
6. Then we added the flavoring and coloring. We again used strawberry flavoring and red food coloring. It was very hard to whisk at this point.
7. Even more microwaving but we couldn’t use the whisk any more.
8. We spread it into an oiled pan (We should have used oiled plastic wrap like in the first recipe.) This was extremely difficult. It reminded me of rubbery jelly.

Recipe Notes: We again used strawberry flavoring and red food coloring. We also did not use nuts.

After letting it set up for a few hours, I tried to cut it with a knife. That just wasn’t working, so I ended up using my hands to make little balls out of it. Then we rolled the balls in powdered sugar.

After completing both recipes we had a taste test. The first recipe was the favorite, but it really was too sweet to eat more than a tiny amount at a time. The second recipe wasn’t very sweet and was almost like eating a gummy bear.

My children loved the book and making Turkish Delight. We would definitely recommend you read the book, too.

Have you ever eaten and/or made Turkish Delight?