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Fruit Candies: Pour
WATERMELON DAINTY Take two cupfuls of sugar, one-fourth cupful of water, one tablespoonful of white corn syrup, and a pinch of cream of tartar and boil until it spins a thread or to 230 degrees. Pour over the stiffly beaten whites of two eggs, and beat up until light and foamy. Add one teaspoonful of vanilla, one cupful of chopped preserved watermelon rind, and one-half cupful of chopped nut meats. Color pink with a little red fruit or vegetable coloring. Pour into a buttered pan or mold to cool and cut into squares.
This is divinity by another name, carrying chopped watermelon-rind preserve instead of the more usual candied cherries. The one number to watch is the syrup temperature, which as printed will give you a soft, spoonable sweet rather than something you can cut into squares.
- The syrup temperature is low230F is thread stage, and will give a marshmallow-soft mass unlikely to hold a cut edge. Modern divinity is generally cooked much higher, into the hard-ball range of roughly 250-260F, and some cooks take it a few degrees higher on a damp day. If you want the squares the recipe promises, cook well above 230F.
- Do not make it on a humid dayBeaten sugar-and-egg-white candies draw moisture from the air and stay tacky. Aim for a dry day, or expect the finished candy to weep.
- Pour in a thin streamWith the mixer running on high, add the hot syrup down the side of the bowl in a slow thread. Dumping it in cooks the whites into threads and the candy never lightens.
- Know when to stop beatingThe mixture is ready when it loses its gloss and a dropped spoonful holds its shape rather than spreading. This can take 6-10 minutes in a stand mixer. Beat past that point and it seizes in the bowl; stop short and it never sets.
- Preserved watermelon rindThe thick white rind of a watermelon, candied in heavy syrup, sold in jars in the American South and online. Drain and blot it well before chopping, since surplus syrup will slacken the candy. Candied citron or candied ginger substitutes in the same quantity.
- Egg whitesThe whites are only partly set by the hot syrup. Use pasteurized whites if serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised; they whip a little more slowly but behave the same.
- White corn syrup and cream of tartarBoth are there to stop the sugar crystallizing. Light corn syrup is the same product; the cream of tartar is a pinch, meaning roughly 1/8 teaspoon.
- Coloring"red fruit or vegetable coloring" points to a plant-based dye such as beet juice (cochineal, the other common period red, is insect-derived rather than fruit or vegetable). A drop or two of modern gel color goes further than liquid and adds no water; add it while beating, not to the hot syrup.
- Pan and yieldAn 8-inch square pan, buttered, gives squares about 3/4 inch thick. Expect roughly 3 dozen pieces. Cut when fully cool with a knife wiped between cuts, and store airtight with waxed paper between layers.
Divinity belongs to the family of American beaten candies often associated with the spread of branded light corn syrup in the first decade of the twentieth century, though commercial glucose was sold well before 1900; the syrup keeps the sugar from graining and makes the meringue-and-sugar technique forgiving enough to print in a household book. The watermelon rind here is the older element. Pickling and candying the pale rind is generally described as a thrift practice in Southern and Midwestern kitchens, where a fruit that was mostly discarded flesh-to-peel yielded a firm, translucent sweetmeat that behaved much like citron and cost nothing. Calling the result a "dainty" was ordinary period usage for a small confection meant to be handed round rather than served as dessert, and the pink coloring is pure showmanship: it makes the candy echo the melon whose rind it contains.