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Divinity (Two cups of sugar one-half cup)
Two cups of sugar, one-half cup of water, one-half cup Karo corn syrup, one cup of pecan or hickory nut meats chopped. Cook sugar, syrup and water until it sticks on side of the cup when tried in cold water; take it off the stove and after it has cooled (about four seconds) pour it into the stiffly beaten whites of two eggs; beat until it gets white and thick, put in nuts, and mould in deep pan or dish; when cold cut in slices or squares. Cherries or citron may be added with nuts if desired.
— Miss Elsie L. Ruffer
Standard divinity, from the era when the cold-water test was the only thermometer most kitchens had. The syrup temperature is the whole recipe; everything else is stirring.
- The hinge: syrup temperature"Sticks on side of the cup" is a vague rendering of the firm- to hard-ball stage. On a candy thermometer that is somewhere around 250-260F; much cooler and the candy tends to stay a sticky paste, much hotter and it turns dry and crumbly.
- "After it has cooled (about four seconds)"This is not a meaningful rest. Take the pan off the heat, let the bubbling subside for a few seconds, then pour in a thin steady stream down the side of the bowl while the whites are being beaten. Dumping it in at once scrambles the egg white and seizes the sugar.
- BeatingHand-beating this to the ribbon stage takes 10-15 minutes of hard work. A stand mixer on medium-high does it in 6-10 minutes. Stop when the mass holds its shape and loses its gloss; a ribbon dropped from the beater should mound rather than sink back.
- HumidityDivinity fails on damp days. Sugar candy this soft draws water from the air and will weep or refuse to firm. Make it when the air is dry.
- KaroKaro is a corn syrup brand; the light grade is what a recipe like this wants, and corn syrup's role here is to keep the sugar from crystallizing. Any light corn syrup works; golden syrup will change the flavour and colour.
- Hickory nutsShagbark hickory was more often gathered than bought, and is rarely sold now. Pecans are closely related and the recipe offers the two interchangeably; toast them briefly to wake up the flavour.
- MouldingThe pan-and-slice method here gives neat squares but a denser candy. Line an 8-inch square pan and press the mixture in, or drop it in spoonfuls onto parchment, which is the more common modern finish. Work fast, as it stiffens within a minute or two.
- YieldRoughly 1 1/2 lb of candy. Store airtight with waxed paper between layers; it is best within the first few days and turns grainy with age.
Divinity belongs to the short window when commercial glucose syrup reached ordinary American kitchens: Karo was launched in the early 1900s, and the syrup reliably prevented the graininess that had made such sweets a gamble. The technique itself is older and international, a soft cousin of nougat and torrone made by beating hot sugar syrup into egg white; American cookbooks of the period also print it as "sea foam" when brown sugar is used. The name is generally traced to nothing more documented than praise for how it tastes. Its appearance here, credited to a contributor by name, is typical of church and society fundraising cookbooks, where a candy that required a brand-name product and a strong arm was a respectable thing to be known for.