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Chocolate Nut Caramels
2 cups of granulated sugar, 1 1/2 cups of pure corn syrup, 2 cups of cream, 1 cup of butter, 3 or 4 squares of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, 1 1/2 cups of English walnut meats, 2 teaspoonfuls of vanilla extract. Put the sugar, pure corn syrup, one cup of the cream, and the butter over the fire; stir and cook until the mixture boils vigorously, then gradually add the other cup of cream. Do not allow the mixture to stop boiling while the cream is being added. Cook until the thermometer registers 250 degree F., stirring gently--move the thermometer, to stir beneath it--every four or five minutes. Without a thermometer boil until--when tested by dropping a little in cold water--a hard ball may be formed in the water. Remove from the fire, add the chocolate and nuts and beat until the chocolate is melted; beat in the vanilla and turn into a biscuit pan, nicely oiled or buttered, to make a sheet three-fourths an inch thick. When nearly cold turn from the pan and cut into cubes.
A straightforward boiled cream caramel with the chocolate stirred in off the heat. The only real difficulty is holding a steady boil while the second cup of cream goes in.
- The hinge: add the second cream slowlyThe recipe is explicit that the mixture must not stop boiling while the second cup of cream goes in. Add it gradually and keep the heat up.
- Baker's Premium No. 1Plain unsweetened baking chocolate. A "square" was conventionally reckoned at an ounce, so three or four squares means roughly 3-4 oz; any modern unsweetened bar will serve.
- Pure corn syrupLight corn syrup, not high-fructose syrup and not dark. It is there as an interfering sugar to keep the caramel smooth rather than for flavour.
- Cream and butterUse heavy cream, 36% fat or better; cream of this period was not standardised, so the fat content behind the original is unknown. One cup of butter is two sticks (8 oz). Unsalted is preferable if you want to add a pinch of salt of your own.
- 250F and the cold-water test250F on a calibrated candy thermometer gives a firm chew that softens at room temperature. Check the thermometer in boiling water first and adjust for altitude by subtracting about 1F per 500 feet.
- Chocolate off the heatBoth chocolate and nuts go in after the pan leaves the fire; chocolate is easily scorched at candy temperatures, and the residual heat is enough to melt it as you beat.
- The biscuit panA "biscuit pan" here is a shallow rimmed sheet. This batch runs to three pounds or more of candy, so a 9x9 inch pan or larger is needed to get the three-quarter-inch sheet called for; anything smaller gives a thicker slab. The recipe says oiled or buttered, though a lining of oiled paper makes the slab easier to lift.
- Cutting and keepingCut when nearly cold with a heavy oiled knife or a bench scraper, pressing straight down rather than sawing. Wrap the cubes individually in waxed paper, or they will tend to stick back together.
Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, traced its chocolate mill back to 1765, when John Hannon and James Baker began grinding cacao there; the Baker family took sole charge around 1780 and the firm took the Walter Baker name in 1824. By the turn of the twentieth century it was issuing small recipe booklets such as Choice Recipes to persuade households to keep unsweetened chocolate in the cupboard for baking and confectionery rather than only for drinking. The candy itself belongs to the American home-caramel vogue of the same decades, which leaned on cheap commercial glucose syrup to keep boiled sugar from graining; the candy thermometer was still new enough in domestic kitchens that the writer supplies the cold-water test as a fallback. English walnuts -- the Persian walnut, distinguished in American usage from the native black walnut -- were the usual confectioner's nut of the period.