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Molasses Candy
We give two excellent recipes: 1. Take two cupfuls of molasses, one cupful of sugar, one tablespoonful of vinegar, and a piece of butter the size of a hickory-nut. Boil briskly twenty minutes, stirring all the time. When cool, pull until white. 2. Take one large coffee-cupful of molasses and two very large tablespoonfuls of sugar, and boil as rapidly as possible for twenty minutes. Try if it is brittle by dropping into cold water. When done, rub one-half teaspoonful soda smooth, and stir dry into the boiling candy. Mix it thoroughly and pour into buttered pans. Stir while boiling to keep it from burning. Do not pull. If you like pop-corn balls, pop it fresh, and stir into a part or whole of it.
Two versions of the same sugar work: one pulled into pale taffy, one poured flat and aerated with soda. Both hinge on temperature, which the original measures only by minutes and a cold-water test.
- Cook to a number, not a clockTwenty minutes of brisk boiling is meant to carry the syrup into the crack stages; the second recipe's brittle test points at hard crack, roughly 300-310F on a candy thermometer, while a batch destined to be pulled is usually taken somewhat lower. Batch size, pan width and stove output all change the timing, so go by the cold-water test the second recipe describes: a drizzle dropped into cold water should set firm and snap rather than bend.
- Coffee-cupfulA nineteenth-century coffee cup runs roughly 3/4 to a full modern cup; "one large coffee-cupful" is fair to read as 1 cup. The two "very large" tablespoons of sugar are about 3 level tablespoons.
- A piece of butter the size of a hickory-nutAround 1 to 2 teaspoons. It is there to discourage sticking and crystallization, not for flavour, so the amount is forgiving.
- Which molassesUse ordinary unsulphured molasses. Blackstrap is far more bitter and mineral than what the book means and will dominate the finished candy.
- Choose a deep panMolasses foams hard, and the soda in the second version makes it climb suddenly. A heavy saucepan at least three times the volume of the syrup, and a wooden spoon, save a boil-over. Stirring throughout is genuinely necessary; molasses scorches readily.
- The sodaHalf a teaspoon of baking soda stirred in dry at the end reacts with the acid in the molasses and fills the candy with fine bubbles, giving a light, snappable texture. The original says to stir it into the boiling candy; whichever you do, mix fast and pour at once. The recipe simply directs that this version not be pulled.
- Pulling until whiteLet the poured slab cool until it can be handled, roughly 120-130F, then butter or oil your hands and pull. The lightening comes chiefly from air worked into the mass, with some fine crystallisation as well, until the candy turns opaque and pale. Twist into ropes and cut with buttered scissors before it sets hard.
- Popcorn ballsHave the popcorn popped, warm and salted before the syrup is ready; toss quickly and form with buttered hands. Syrup at hard-crack is around 300F, so work with a spoon at first rather than bare fingers.
- Yield and keepingKeeping -- Wrap pieces individually in waxed paper; molasses candy draws moisture from the air and turns sticky within a day if left open.
Molasses candy belongs to the era when molasses, not refined sugar, was the everyday sweetener in American kitchens: cheap, shipped north in barrels from the Caribbean sugar trade, and used freely in cakes, pies and confectionery where its dark flavour was a virtue. Pulling it was social as much as culinary, the taffy-pull or "molasses candy party" being a standard winter amusement for young people in the nineteenth century. The second recipe's trick of stirring in dry soda at the end of the boil is the same chemistry behind honeycomb toffee and cinder toffee, and the note about popcorn balls reflects a period when popcorn was a cheap household treat popped over the kitchen fire.