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Cocoanut Balls
To half a cup of sweetened condensed milk add enough shredded cocoanut to make a stiff paste.
Flavor with vanilla. Roll into small balls and put on paraffine paper to dry.
An uncooked confection of two ingredients, which means the texture is decided entirely by the ratio you stop at. Add the coconut in stages.
- Sweetened condensed milkHalf a cup is four fluid ounces, a bit under half of a standard 14 oz can (a can holds roughly 1 1/4 cups). It is not evaporated milk, which is unsweetened and will not set into a paste.
- CocoanutShredded coconut of this period was typically sold dry and unsweetened. Modern bagged sweetened flaked coconut is moister and much sweeter, so you will likely need more of it and the balls will be very sweet; unsweetened desiccated coconut gives a result closer to the original.
- How stiff is stiffWork in coconut until the mass holds a clean shape when squeezed and no longer slumps. Expect roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups of dry unsweetened coconut per half cup of milk, but go by feel rather than the figure.
- Paraffine paperThis is waxed paper. Parchment works as well and releases more cleanly.
- DryingSeveral hours at room temperature firms the surface; overnight is better. The centres stay soft and chewy, which is the point of the sweet.
- Yield and keepingHalf a cup of milk makes about 20 to 24 balls the size of a large marble. Store them covered once dry, and refrigerate in warm weather so they hold their shape.
- Variations that fit the methodA tablespoon of cocoa, a little grated orange zest, or a partial roll in extra coconut all work without changing the ratio enough to matter.
Sweetened condensed milk made candy like this possible for cooks with no thermometer and no patience for the sugar stages: the sugar is already dissolved and concentrated, so a stiff paste sets up without a boil. Gail Borden patented a process for condensing milk in 1856, and by the early twentieth century the canned product was a fixture of American pantries, promoted by its makers with leaflets of exactly this sort of two-ingredient recipe. Shredded coconut arrived on the same commercial wave, sold dried and bagged rather than cracked at home. The appeal is plain enough: a candy that requires no stove at all.