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Peppermint Creams
One pound granulated sugar, one-quarter cup boiling water, one-quarter teaspoon cream tartar. Pour water on sugar and moisten thoroughly; set on stove and boil five minutes after it begins to boil, but do not stir, jar or move pan while boiling; at the close of the five minutes add cream tartar, take from stove, add peppermint flavoring to suit taste, and stir until it becomes creamy, then drop with spoon on oil paper. As it becomes too thick to drop, put back on stove, adding a very little water, and stir until creamy again. Vary this by using lemon, wintergreen or any preferred flavoring.
— Mrs. Charles E. Willard
This is a plain sugar fondant, dropped rather than kneaded. The whole outcome depends on how far the syrup cooks and how cool it is when you start stirring, so a candy thermometer replaces the five-minute clock.
- Cook to a number, not a clockFive minutes of boiling means nothing across different pans and burners. Take the syrup to 238-240F (soft-ball stage); below that the creams stay sticky, above it they set hard and crumbly before you can drop them.
- Do not stir or jar the panThis is the hinge. Any agitation, or a stray sugar crystal from the side of the pan, seeds premature crystallisation and the batch goes gritty. Wash the pan sides down with a wet brush once at the start and then leave it entirely alone.
- The cream of tartarA quarter teaspoon is correct, but acid added with the water at the beginning has the whole boil in which to invert some of the sucrose, which is what keeps the finished cream smooth. Added at the very end, as written, it has far less time to act.
- Let it cool before stirringStirring a syrup straight off the heat gives coarse crystals. Let it cool for a few minutes before beating, then stir until it turns opaque and creamy; it must still be warm enough to drop from a spoon.
- Flavouring strengthPeppermint oil and peppermint extract are not interchangeable. Oil is several times stronger: start with 2 or 3 drops of oil, or 1/2 teaspoon of extract, per pound of sugar.
- Oiled paperParchment does the job with no greasing. A silicone mat also works. Waxed paper is workable but the creams stick more.
- ReheatingThe instruction to return the stiffened fondant to the stove with a little water is sound; keep the heat low and add water a teaspoon at a time, or you will thin it past dropping consistency.
- YieldOne pound of sugar gives roughly 40 to 50 creams the size of a teaspoon. They firm up in an hour or two and keep a week in a tin, layered with paper.
Peppermint creams belong to the era when boiled-sugar sweets were a routine household skill rather than a specialist craft, and compilations of contributed receipts often carried a handful of them. The technique is fondant making at its simplest: sugar, water, a trace of acid to discourage large crystals, and vigorous stirring at the right moment to force the syrup into a mass of crystals fine enough to read as smooth on the tongue. Cream of tartar, a byproduct of winemaking, was the cheap acid on the pantry shelf; commercial confectioners of the period also used glucose for the same purpose. The closing note offering lemon or wintergreen is a reminder of how much of nineteenth-century home candy work rested on a small rack of flavouring oils.