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Sugar: a Great Source of Heat and Energy: Spanish
ALMOND NOUGATINES Prepare the recipe for "Divinity Fudge" or "Spanish Nougat"; when cold cut in oblong pieces about three-eighths of an inch wide and in inch and a half long, and dip in chocolate, making a design on the upper side. CANDIES COOKED TO A HIGH DEGREE In cooking candies to a high degree the stirring must be constant during the last part of the cooking.
PEANUT BRITTLE For this candy put over the fire one cup and a half of sugar, half a cup of glucose and two-thirds a cup of water; stir till the sugar is dissolved and wash down the sides of the saucepan as in making fondant; cover and let cook three or four minutes, then uncover and let cook without stirring to 275 deg F. (or until when a little is cooled and chewed it clings but does not stick to the teeth); add two level tableshpoonfuls of butter and half a pound of small, raw, shelled peanuts, from which the skins have been taken, and stir constantly until the peanuts are well browned; add a teaspoonful of vanilla extract and a level teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in a tablespoonful of cold water, and stir vigorously. When the mixture is done foaming turn it onto a warm, oiled marble or platter and, as soon as it can be handled, pull it out as thin as possible. With a spatula loosen it from the marble in the center and turn the sheet upside down and pull again as thin as possible. Break into pieces. To remove the skin from the peanuts, cover the shelled nuts with boiling water, let boil once, drain, cover with cold water, and push off the skins. The small unroasted Spanish peanuts give the best results. POP CORN BALLS 1 1/2 cups of sugar 2 tablespoonfuls of butter 1/3 cup of glucose 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 2/3 cup of water About 5 quarts of hot popped 1/2 cup of dark molasses corn Put the sugar, glucose and water over the fire and stir till the sugar melts; wash down the sides of the pan, cover and let steam five minutes, then uncover and cook without stirring to 280 deg F. Or test in the same way as peanut brittle. Add the other ingredients and cook until very brittle when tried in cold water. Stir occasionally at first, then constantly. Have the corn in a hot dish; stir while pouring the candy over it. Mix thoroughly, then roll into balls. Do not press the corn together too compactly. Remove all hard kernels of corn before adding the candy.
Three related sugar-work recipes at the hard-crack end of the scale. A calibrated candy thermometer and everything measured out before the syrup goes on the heat are the whole job; once the sugar passes 250F there is no time to hunt for the soda.
- Glucose is corn syrupThe "glucose" of period candy books is commercial glucose syrup, sold now as light corn syrup. Substitute it cup for cup. Its purpose is to interfere with crystallisation so the brittle sets glassy rather than grainy.
- Temperatures are already modernThe readings are given in degrees Fahrenheit: 275F for the brittle before the nuts go in, 280F for the popcorn syrup. Check your thermometer in boiling water first and adjust for altitude, subtracting roughly 1F per 500 feet above sea level.
- Washing down the panThe instruction refers to wiping the inside walls of the saucepan with a wet pastry brush to dissolve stray sugar crystals. The three or four minutes covered is doing the same work with steam. Skipping it is the usual reason brittle turns cloudy and sandy.
- The soda is the hingeThe baking soda dissolved in water reacts with the hot syrup and fills it with gas, which is what makes brittle snap instead of shatter teeth. Have it dissolved and to hand before you start, add it off a very brief pause in stirring, and pour immediately -- the foam collapses as it cools.
- Peanuts and browningSpanish peanuts are the small red-skinned variety, still sold raw at nut sellers and some supermarkets. Raw nuts are essential: they toast in the syrup during those last minutes, and roasted nuts will scorch. Blanching as described loosens the skins in about a minute.
- Marble, or the alternativeA slab is ideal but a heavy rimmed baking sheet, warmed in a low oven and lightly oiled, works. Pulling brittle thin means handling candy that is still hot enough to burn -- clean cotton gloves under disposable gloves are the practical answer.
- Popcorn quantityFive quarts is about 20 cups of popped corn, roughly two-thirds of a cup of unpopped kernels. Warming it in a low oven before the syrup goes on keeps the coating fluid long enough to mix and shape.
- Dipping the nougatinesFor the chocolate coating, use tempered couverture or a compound coating; untempered chocolate is liable to bloom grey. The recipe does not say how the 'design on the upper side' was made; the usual confectioner's method is to mark the setting surface with the tines of a dipping fork.
- YieldThe brittle makes roughly a pound and a half, the popcorn recipe about a dozen to fifteen balls of tennis-ball size. Both keep in airtight tins; humidity is the enemy and will turn either sticky within hours in a damp kitchen.
Peanut brittle in something close to this form spread through American cookbooks in the late nineteenth century, once cheap refined sugar, commercial glucose and Southern-grown peanuts all became reliably available at once; the small Spanish peanut the recipe insists on was one of the varieties then used in confectionery. The baking soda trick is the technical heart of it, and it is often said to be what separates the airy modern brittle from the dense, tooth-cracking nut candies of earlier decades. Popcorn balls belong to the same commercial sugar economy and to the American autumn calendar -- harvest suppers, church fairs and, in time, Hallowe'en. That all three appear under a chapter heading calling sugar "a great source of heat and energy" reflects the confident nutritional science of the day, when calories were newly measurable and candy could be filed, without embarrassment, under fuel.