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Cocoa-Nut Caramels
One pint milk, butter size of an egg, one cocoa-nut grated fine (or dessicated cocoa-nut may be used), three pounds white sugar, two tea-spoons lemon, boil slowly until stiff (some then beat to a cream), pour into shallow pans, and when partly cold cut in squares. Miss Nettie Brewster, Madison.
A boiled milk-and-sugar candy in the fudge family rather than a chewy modern caramel. The recipe gives no temperature, so a thermometer is the one piece of equipment that makes it repeatable.
- ScaleThree pounds of sugar to a pint of milk is a very large batch, yielding several pounds of candy and needing more than one shallow pan. Halving or quartering it is sensible for a home kitchen.
- Butter size of an eggAbout 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons.
- "Boil slowly until stiff"This means the soft-ball stage, 234-240F. Without a thermometer, test by dropping a little into cold water: it should form a ball that flattens between the fingers. Undercooked, it will never set; overcooked, it turns hard and grainy.
- Two tea-spoons lemonAlmost certainly lemon extract rather than juice. Strengths vary, so start with one teaspoon and add it off the heat, since the alcohol carries the flavour off in a long boil.
- Cocoa-nutOne fresh coconut grated fine gives roughly 3 to 4 cups. Desiccated coconut, which the recipe already permits, is unsweetened and dry; sweetened flaked coconut will push an already very sweet candy further.
- Beating to a creamThe parenthetical marks the real choice in the recipe. Poured hot and left alone, the candy sets firm and smooth; beaten as it cools, it sets opaque and fudge-like. Beat off the heat, not over it.
- ScorchingMilk sugar catches easily at this sugar concentration. Use a heavy pan with room to spare, stir on the bottom until the sugar dissolves, and keep the boil steady rather than fierce.
- CuttingScore into squares while the slab is still warm and barely set, then finish cutting when cold. Wait too long and it shatters instead of cutting.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping appeared from Minneapolis in 1877, growing out of the Centennial Buckeye Cook Book compiled in Marysville, Ohio, the year before; it collected contributions from named women, which is why this page carries Miss Nettie Brewster of Madison rather than an anonymous house style. "Caramel" in American home confectionery of the period was often used broadly for boiled sugar candies, including milk-and-sugar squares that a modern cook would call fudge. The alternative of desiccated coconut is the interesting detail: the recipe itself shows that shredded dried coconut could be bought ready-made, so that a cook could choose between cracking and grating a whole nut and opening a package.