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Hard Candied: Tablets
HONEY PEPPERMINT TABLETS Take one cupful of honey, one cupful of sugar and one-half cupful of white corn syrup, one-fourth teaspoonful of cream of tartar and one teaspoonful of butter. Boil to the crack stage, then remove from fire and add one teaspoonful of peppermint extract. Drop from a spoon onto oiled paper, about the size of a nickel or quarter. This candy can be pulled if preferred, and cut into pieces. MAPLE TABLETS Melt together in a saucepan one cupful of maple sugar and one cupful of light brown sugar, four tablespoonfuls of butter, one teaspoonful of lemon juice and one tablespoonful of water. Boil to the hard crack stage, and drop on oiled paper in drops about the size of a nickel. When partly cool stick two of the drops together.
FRUIT TABLETS Take one cupful of sugar, one-half cupful of corn syrup and one-half glass of currant or any kind of jelly. Boil to the crack stage, add a teaspoonful of vanilla, almond or the kind of flavoring that goes best with the jelly used. Drop from a spoon on oiled or waxed paper, and when partly cool put two drops together.
ROSE NOUGAT Take two cupfuls of granulated sugar, one-half cupful white corn syrup, one-half cupful of water and a fourth teaspoonful of cream of tartar. Boil to the crack stage. Add one-half cupful of finely chopped candied cherries, and color a rose color with fruit or vegetable coloring. Let stand for a few moments until partly cool, then pour over the whites of two stiffly beaten eggs. Beat well and pour into a buttered mold. Cut into squares. One-half cupful of finely chopped almonds can be added if desired and flavored with one-half teaspoonful of almond extract.
RAISIN STICKIES Take one cupful of sugar and one cupful of golden corn syrup and one cupful of finely chopped raisins, and one-half cupful of water and boil to the crack stage. Add one-half teaspoonful of cinnamon and one teaspoonful of vanilla. Pour into buttered pans, and when partly cool, mark off into sticks about an inch across. Twist each stick until twice the original length and cut in two. Place on paraffine paper until cool.
VANILLA TAFFY Place in a saucepan two cupfuls of white sugar, one cupful of white corn syrup, and one-half cupful of water. Bring to a boil, then add one teaspoonful of glycerine and a fourth teaspoonful of cream of tartar. Boil to about 260 degrees or to a little more than the hard ball stage and not quite to the crack stage. Pour on a greased platter or a slab, and add a tablespoonful of vanilla. Dip your hands in corn-starch and as soon as it cools enough to be handled pull until it is white and waxy. If a hook is used you can make nicer and whiter taffy. Remove from hands or hook and lay on waxed paper, and when cold break up; or it can be cut into small pieces while still warm. In summer taffy should be wrapped in waxed paper, since it is liable to become very sticky.
SALT WATER TAFFY This is made the same as the vanilla taffy except that a tablespoonful of butter is added and one teaspoonful of salt. This can be flavored and colored to suit the taste and pulled like the vanilla taffy. In making taffy fold over the edges as it cools and keep folding the batch up until cool enough to pull. TAFFY DREAMS WITH NUT CENTERS Place in a saucepan two pounds of granulated sugar, one cup of water and one-half teaspoonful cream of tartar or a tablespoonful of lemon juice. Boil to the hard ball stage. Place some nut meats in a bowl and pour enough of the syrup over these so that they will be well coated. Set these in a cool place while pulling the remainder of the taffy. Put the syrup over the fire and boil until nearly the crack stage, then remove and flavor with vanilla or almond, or any flavoring desired. Pour over a large platter or a marble slab. Cool quickly, and then dip your hands in corn-starch and pull the candy until white. Form into a sheet about six inches wide while still warm. Lay on a tin or slab and spread the nut mixture in the center. Fold the edge of sheet over, pinch the edges together so that the nut part cannot be seen. Now stretch the candy by pulling it gently and quickly through the palms of both hands. Cut into pieces with a sharp knife and lay on waxed paper. Nut and fruit combined can be used for the centers, or fruit alone. In this case pour the syrup over them to make them stick together as above.
A group of pulled and dropped hard candies from the era when a candy thermometer was optional and cooks judged syrup by dropping it in cold water. Temperatures are the main thing to pin down.
- What the stages mean in degreesSoft crack is 270–290F, hard crack 300–310F, hard ball 250–265F. Where a recipe simply says "the crack stage" for a drop candy or nougat, aim for 300F; for taffy that must stay chewable, stop lower.
- The vanilla taffy temperature is internally inconsistentIt calls 260F "a little more than the hard ball stage and not quite the crack stage." 260F is squarely hard ball. Follow the number, not the description: 258–262F gives taffy you can pull, while anything near 290F will set too brittle to work.
- Cook it fast and do not stirOnce the sugar has dissolved, stop stirring and boil briskly. Wash crystals from the pan sides with a wet pastry brush. The cream of tartar inverts some of the sucrose and the corn syrup interferes with crystal formation; skipping either invites a sandy batch.
- Corn syrup then and now"White" corn syrup is light corn syrup; "golden" appears to be the darker, more strongly flavoured bottling rather than the light one. Glucose syrup or a mix of glucose and a spoon of honey works if you cannot get corn syrup.
- GlycerineFood-grade glycerine is usually sold with cake-decorating supplies or at a pharmacy rather than in the baking aisle. It keeps pulled taffy soft and pliable; omitting it makes a firmer, shorter-keeping taffy rather than ruining the batch.
- Maple sugarGranulated maple sugar is still made in Vermont and Quebec and is expensive. Do not swap in maple syrup, which will throw the moisture balance off entirely.
- The nougat egg whitesPouring hot syrup over beaten whites in a thin stream while beating hard is the Italian meringue method, but this recipe has the syrup stand until partly cool first, so the whites may not reach a temperature that cooks them. Pour it in slowly and keep beating, or the whites will scramble in the bowl and the nougat will never set smooth.
- Pulling and handlingSugar at 260F causes serious burns and clings to skin. Let the slab cool until the mass holds a dent before touching it, fold the edges in as the book says, and work with dry, cornstarch-dusted hands. Buttered baking parchment replaces the oiled and paraffine paper.
- HumidityHard candy pulls moisture from the air. Make these on a dry day, and store the finished pieces individually wrapped in wax paper in a tin. The note about summer stickiness applies to every recipe here, not just the vanilla taffy.
Home candy manuals proliferated in the United States between about 1890 and 1920, when cheap refined sugar, commercial corn syrup and reliable kitchen ranges put confectionery within reach of an ordinary household that had previously bought it from a shop. "Tablet" here means simply a small flat drop of hard candy, an older confectioner's sense of the word that survives in Scottish tablet, a quite different crumbly sweet. Taffy pulling was a social occasion as much as a cooking method — pull parties are well documented in nineteenth-century American accounts, and pulling on a fixed hook, used in candy shops and in some home kitchens, did the work of a second pair of hands and worked air into the batch to turn it opaque and white. Salt water taffy is generally traced to the Atlantic City boardwalk in the 1880s; by the time this book was written it was famous enough that the author could define it in a single sentence as vanilla taffy with butter and salt added.