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Caramel Sauce
Burn 1 cup sugar in the spider, stirring all the time. Then add 1 pint hot milk and 2 tablespoons cornstarch stirred together, also½ cup hickory nutmeats.
Three lines of instruction covering a dry caramel, a starch-thickened custard and a nut garnish. The order in which you combine things matters more than anything else here.
- The hinge: adding liquid to dry caramelMolten sugar is far hotter than boiling milk, and pouring liquid into it causes violent sputtering and a seized lump. Take the pan off the heat, add the milk in a slow stream at arm's length, then return it to low heat and stir until the hardened caramel dissolves again.
- "The spider"A spider was originally a long-handled cast-iron pan on three legs, for standing in the coals; by the early twentieth century the word was commonly used for a plain heavy cast-iron frying pan. Any heavy-bottomed skillet or saucepan works, and a light-coloured pan helps you judge the caramel.
- "Burn 1 cup sugar"This means a dry caramel, no water: sugar alone over medium heat, stirred until it melts and goes deep amber, the colour of an old penny. Actual burning turns it acrid and bitter, so pull it as soon as it smells nutty and darkens past honey.
- The cornstarchAs written the cornstarch is "stirred together" with hot milk, which will lump. Whisk the 2 tablespoons into a few tablespoons of cold milk to a smooth slurry, heat the rest of the pint, and combine.
- Cooking the thickened sauceOnce the caramel and milk are smooth, bring to a bare simmer and cook 1 to 2 minutes, stirring, until it coats a spoon. Cornstarch needs to reach a simmer to thicken fully, but prolonged boiling thins it back out.
- MeasuresThe size of the pint is not certain: a Canadian book of this period may intend the 20 fl oz imperial pint, though 16 fl oz (2 cups) was also in use. With the smaller measure the sauce comes out thicker. No salt or vanilla is called for, though a pinch of salt sharpens the caramel.
- Hickory nutmeatsShagbark hickory nuts are rarely sold and tedious to crack. Pecans are the closest relative in flavour and texture; toast and chop them, and stir them in off the heat so they stay crisp.
- YieldRoughly 2 1/2 cups. Serve warm; it thickens considerably as it cools and can be loosened with a splash of milk over low heat.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its Five Roses flour, and was assembled largely from recipes sent in by users of the flour, which may account for the telegraphic style here. Melting dry sugar in a skillet was one common home method of making caramel, and pairing it with a cornstarch-thickened milk sauce gave a rich pudding sauce without eggs or cream. The hickory nuts suggest a contributor in the eastern hardwood country of Ontario or the Great Lakes states, where shagbark and other hickories were gathered in autumn and cracked through the winter; they turn up in North American cookbooks of the period where an English book would have called for walnuts.