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Potato Cocoanut Candy
1 medium sized potato 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar 2 cups Dromedary Cocoanut 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Chocolate, melted Cook potato in boiling water until soft, then press through a sieve or vegetable ricer; there should be one-half cup of potato. When cool, add sugar, cocoanut and vanilla, working until well mixed. Press one inch thick into small bread pan, and spread top with a thin layer of bitter or sweet chocolate. When chocolate is firm, remove from pan and cut in small squares. Wrap each square in waxed paper.
A no-cook fondant in which a spoonful of plain potato does all the binding work. The recipe is forgiving about most things and unforgiving about two: the amount of potato and its plainness.
- The potato must be nakedThe potato must be plain -- Cook it without butter, milk or seasoning; added fat and extra moisture will soften the mixture and make it slow to firm. The recipe itself specifies nothing beyond boiling water.
- Measure, don't guess"One medium sized potato" varies by half again either way; the half cup of riced potato is the real measurement. Too much and the mixture never firms, too little and it crumbles when cut.
- Let it cool firstWarm potato dissolves the confectioners' sugar into syrup. Rice it, spread it out, and let it come to room temperature before the sugar goes in.
- Dromedary CocoanutA packaged shredded coconut, probably moister than modern desiccated coconut. If you use dry unsweetened coconut expect a drier, less cohesive candy, and a teaspoon or two of water may help it hold together.
- Small bread panAround 7 by 3.5 inches in this period — the size that gives a one-inch slab from this quantity. An 8-inch square pan will produce a thin sheet instead.
- The chocolate layerMelt it gently and spread thin; chocolate that has been overheated or poorly handled may set dull and streaky rather than snapping cleanly.
- Yield and keepingRoughly two dozen small squares, more if cut smaller. The potato keeps this a moist candy, so it softens with time; wrapped and cool, or refrigerated, is best.
Potato candy belongs to a family of cheap American fondants that use a starchy vegetable in place of egg white or cooked sugar syrup — the potato supplies just enough moisture and starch to hold a great deal of confectioners' sugar in suspension without a candy thermometer or a boiling pan. The chocolate-coated coconut version is closely associated with Maine, where such squares are traditionally called needhams, and similar potato-and-sugar sweets turn up in Pennsylvania German home cooking. Its appearance here is straightforwardly commercial: Dromedary was the grocery brand for dates and shredded coconut, and booklets like this one existed to put the company's package into as many recipes as possible, candy included. That a confection could be made with no cooking beyond a boiled potato also suited a kitchen where sugar work over the stove was a real undertaking.