Crisco Drops
1/2 cupful golden syrup 4 tablespoonfuls Crisco 1/4 cupful water 1/4 teaspoonful salt 1/2 teaspoonful vanilla extract Put Crisco, golden syrup, water, and salt into saucepan and boil until it is almost brittle when tested in cold water, or 290 degree F., then add vanilla. Allow to cool down, and then drop on to Criscoed tin. Sufficient for twenty drops.
A one-pan syrup candy from a Crisco promotional cookbook — closer to a chewy toffee drop than a cookie, despite the name. It hinges entirely on hitting the right sugar stage and then working fast.
- Read "drops" correctlyThese are boiled-sugar candies dropped from a spoon, not a baked dough. There is no flour, no egg and no leavening anywhere in the list, which is worth knowing before you scale it.
- 290F is the target, and a thermometer beats the water test290F is the top of the soft-crack range, just short of hard crack (300-310F). At that point the candy sets firm but still yields to the tooth; carry it past 310F and it turns glassy and shatters.
- Golden syrup is not interchangeableLyle's-style golden syrup is a partly inverted cane syrup with a caramel note. Light corn syrup will boil to the same stage but tastes flatter; treacle or molasses is far more prone to scorching at these temperatures and will dominate the flavour.
- Crisco measuresFour tablespoonfuls is 1/4 cup of solid vegetable shortening. Any neutral solid fat behaves the same here; butter will work but its milk solids brown well before 290F.
- "Criscoed tin"A shortening-greased baking sheet. Parchment or a silicone mat does the job with less mess and lets the cooled drops lift cleanly.
- Pan sizeA syrup-and-fat mixture climbs hard as the water boils off. Use a pan at least three times the volume of the ingredients and do not walk away from it in the last thirty degrees.
- The cooling window is short"Allow to cool down" means a minute or two off the heat, only until the bubbling settles and the mass thickens slightly. Wait longer and it stiffens in the pan; a brief return to low heat will loosen it again.
- YieldTwenty drops; the recipe does not specify their size. Store them airtight — boiled syrup candy pulls moisture from the air and goes tacky within a day in a humid kitchen.
A Calendar of Dinners belongs to the wave of cookbooks published by Procter & Gamble to teach cooks what to do with Crisco, the hydrogenated cottonseed-oil shortening introduced in 1911. The books were written by working cookery authors — Marion Harris Neil compiled the Crisco volumes — and the brand name is worked into nearly every ingredient list and instruction, down to the "Criscoed tin" here. The use of golden syrup rather than corn syrup may point to a version prepared for British readers, where golden syrup was a common household sweetener.