Liquorice twists

There was always liquorice in our house, but I never liked it until deep into my adult years.

This liquorice is naturally dark brown, not black like the shop-bought variety; you can add a few drops of black food colouring if you really must.

Makes 30 long twists

mild-flavoured cooking oil spray

2 tablespoons mild-flavoured oil

185 g (6½ oz/1 cup) brown sugar

90 g (3¼ oz/¼ cup) golden syrup or light treacle

175 g (6 oz/½ cup) blackstrap molasses (from health food stores)

3½ teaspoons ground liquorice root

3½ teaspoons ground aniseed

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

225 g (8 oz/1½ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour

Line a 20 x 30 cm (8 x 12 inch) slab tin with baking paper. Lightly spray the paper with cooking oil spray to prevent sticking. Set aside.

In a large saucepan, combine the oil, sugar, golden syrup, molasses, liquorice root, aniseed and salt and stir over high heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Bring to the boil without stirring, then insert a sugar thermometer and leave to boil until the temperature reaches 110–115°C (230–239°F).

Remove the pan from the heat and gradually stir in the flour, mixing with a whisk until very well combined — check for lumps! You should end up with a thick, but still pourable, paste.

Pour the mixture into the slab tin. Smooth over with a wet palette knife and refrigerate for 30 minutes. The liquorice mixture will be firm, but not too hard to cut through at this stage.

For this next step, you’ll need to work quite quickly; the warmer your kitchen, the more quickly the liquorice will become trickier to work with. So, remove the liquorice from the fridge. Using a sharp knife, and starting at a short end, cut the liquorice into thin straps, about 1 cm (½ inch) wide. Separate the straps and, working quickly from one end to another, twist them into a rope; you can then cut into smaller pieces if you like.

The straps still need to be fairly cold when you twist them — when they start to warm up, they stretch too much, and don’t hold their shape. If you need to, you can put them back in the fridge for a short time to firm up again — but if they get too cold they will be too difficult to work with, so you might have to play it by ear a little, depending on the weather and the temperature of your fridge.

Place the finished twists back on a tray lined with baking paper, spaced apart so they don’t stick together. Place back in the fridge to firm up.

Store in a sealed container in the fridge, stacked in layers separated by baking paper. The liquorice will keep for a couple of months.

If you don’t like them too chewy, take them out of the fridge shortly before you serve them so they soften up a little.

Photography © Brett Stevens