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Delicious Seafoam Candy
2 cups brown sugar 1/2 cup water 1 egg-white, beaten 1 pinch salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1½ package Dromedary Cocoanut 1/2 package Dromedary Dates, stoned and chopped Cook sugar and water together until when tested in cold water it forms a soft ball. Beat white of egg and salt until stiff, add boiling mixture and beat vigorously all the time. Continue to beat until nearly cold, then add dates, cocoanut and vanilla. Drop by spoonfuls on a greased platter.
A brown-sugar divinity, thickened with coconut and dates. The whole thing turns on syrup temperature and on beating long enough, and a stand mixer removes nearly all the difficulty.
- Soft ball, in numbersThe cold-water soft-ball stage is 235-240F on a candy thermometer; aim for 238F. Below that the candy never sets and stays a sticky paste; much above it and the mixture seizes before you can spoon it out.
- The package sizes are unknowableThe book never states the weight of Dromedary's coconut and date cartons, and the period package sizes are not recorded. Treat the proportions as a guide: roughly 2 cups shredded coconut and roughly 1 cup chopped pitted dates suits this quantity of syrup. Adjust to taste rather than trying to reconstruct the package.
- CocoanutSimply the older spelling of coconut. The Dromedary product was shredded coconut, likely sweetened and moister than the desiccated coconut sold for baking; if using desiccated, the candy will drink up more moisture and stiffen faster.
- Pour the syrup properlyWith the mixer running, add the boiling syrup in a thin steady stream down the side of the bowl, not into the beater. Syrup that hits the whisk flings out and sets as brittle threads on the sides.
- Beating time"Until nearly cold" is roughly 8-12 minutes in a stand mixer. Stop when the mass loses its gloss and a dropped spoonful holds a peak instead of spreading. That is the hinge: spoon it out one minute past that point and it tears rather than mounds.
- Weather mattersMeringue-based candies fail on humid days, absorbing moisture from the air and refusing to firm. Make this in dry conditions, or cook the syrup two degrees higher.
- Greased platterParchment or a silicone mat serves better than a greased platter and needs no fat. Work quickly with two spoons; the mixture stiffens noticeably in the bowl as it cools.
- Yield and keepingAbout 30 to 36 pieces, roughly a walnut each. Store airtight at room temperature for up to a week; refrigeration makes them weep.
- Egg whiteThe boiling syrup heats the whites but does not reliably pasteurize them. Anyone cooking for the very young, elderly, or immune-compromised should use pasteurized egg white or powdered egg white.
Seafoam is the brown-sugar cousin of divinity, a beaten-meringue candy that spread through American home kitchens as sugar boiling became a domestic rather than a confectioner's craft. Using brown sugar in place of white gives the caramel note and the pale tan color. The brand-name ingredients suggest this version comes from a Dromedary promotional booklet: the Hills Brothers Company of New York sold packaged dates and shredded coconut under that brand, and food companies of the era commonly published recipe pamphlets whose real purpose was to find new uses for the product. Hence the slightly awkward instruction to add a package and a half of one thing and half a package of another, measurements that made sense at the grocery counter and nowhere else.