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Candy of Any Flavor
Three and a half pounds refined sugar, one and a half pints water, one tea-spoon cream tartar; mix in a vessel large enough to hold the candy when expanded by the heat; boil over a brisk fire, taking care that it does not burn. The heat should be applied at bottom and not at the sides. After boiling fifteen minutes, remove a small portion of the melted sugar with a spoon, and cool by placing in a saucer set in cold water. When cool enough, take a portion between thumb and finger, and if it forms a "string" or "thread" as they are separated, the process is nearly done, and great care must be used to control the heat so that the boiling may be kept up without burning. Test frequently by dropping a bit into cold water placed near; if it becomes hard and brittle, snapping apart when bent, it is done and must be removed at once, and the flavoring stirred in. Then pour into shallow earthen dishes, thoroughly but lightly greased, and cooled until it can be handled; pull, roll into sticks or make into any desired shape.
A basic pulled-candy syrup, written before thermometers were common in home kitchens. The cold-water tests still work, but a candy thermometer removes all the guesswork.
- The hinge: hard-crack stageThe final test described — brittle, snapping when bent — is hard-crack, 300–310F (149–154C). Below that the candy stays tacky and will sag; much above it the sugar begins to caramelize and turns bitter and amber.
- The earlier "thread" testWhen a cooled drop pulls into a thread between the fingers you are only at about 230F, well short of the finish. The recipe is right that this signals the end is coming, but there is still real cooking left.
- Cream of tartarOne teaspoon in 3.5 lb sugar inverts part of the sucrose and helps keep the batch from crystallizing while it is pulled. Better not to leave it out; without an interfering acid (or a glucose syrup in its place) the candy is much more likely to grain up as it is worked.
- Refined sugarOrdinary granulated white sugar. In 1877 "refined" distinguished it from the darker, less pure grades still sold alongside it.
- Units and vessel1.5 pints is 3 cups. Use a heavy pan holding at least 4 quarts -- the syrup climbs high when it boils. The instruction about heat at the bottom and not the sides most likely reflects cooking over coals or a wood-fired range; on a modern burner keep the flame within the pan's base.
- Do not stir, and wash the sidesOnce the sugar dissolves, leave it alone. Brush the pan walls down with a wet pastry brush or cover the pan for the first few minutes so condensing steam dissolves stray crystals.
- Fifteen minutes is not a timeBoiling time depends entirely on pan width and heat. Judge only by temperature or the cold-water test; a wide shallow pan will reach hard-crack considerably faster than a narrow, deep one.
- Flavoring and pouringStir in extract off the heat — volatile oils flash off in boiling syrup. Oil-based candy flavorings hold up better than alcohol extracts. Grease shallow metal or ceramic pans lightly with a neutral oil; a silicone mat also works.
- Pulling and yieldThe mass must be cool enough to handle but still plastic, which is a narrow window; work fast and wear clean cotton gloves, as the sugar stays hot enough to burn well after it stops looking dangerous. This batch makes close to 3.5 lb of candy -- several dozen sticks, depending how you cut them. Halve it unless you have help pulling.
Pulled candy of this kind was a mainstay of nineteenth-century home confectionery and of the taffy pull, a social occasion as much as a cooking task: the syrup had to be worked by several pairs of hands while it was still warm, and the aeration from repeated folding and stretching is what turned clear amber sugar opaque and satiny. That Buckeye Cookery gives one all-purpose formula and leaves the flavor to the cook reflects how such recipes were used -- the same syrup became peppermint, lemon, wintergreen or horehound depending on what the household had. Cream of tartar, a byproduct of winemaking, was widely available and commonly used in home candy-making to keep sugar from crystallizing, a role glucose syrups played for professional confectioners.