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Butter Scotch
1 cup sugar 1 tablespoon vinegar 1/4 cup molasses 2 tablespoons boiling water 1/2 cup butter Boil ingredients together until, when tried in cold water, mixture will become brittle. Turn into a well buttered pan; when slightly cool, mark with a sharp-pointed knife in squares. This candy is much improved by cooking a small piece of vanilla bean with other ingredients.
A straightforward boiled sugar candy: the only real variable is how far you take the syrup, and a thermometer removes all the guesswork.
- The hinge: hard-crack stage"Brittle when tried in cold water" corresponds to the hard-crack stage, about 300-310F (149-154C). Stop short of that and the candy stays chewy and sticks to teeth; taken well beyond it the sugar begins to darken and can turn bitter. A clip-on candy thermometer is easier to judge than the cold-water test.
- Pan and heatUse a heavy saucepan at least three times the volume of the ingredients, since the butter and molasses make the syrup foam up as it boils. Medium heat throughout; stir only until the sugar dissolves, then leave it alone.
- Butter quantityHalf a cup of butter to one cup of sugar is a high proportion of butter, which is broadly what separates butterscotch from a plain toffee, though the two names have never been used consistently. Use unsalted butter and add a good pinch of salt yourself, or the candy tastes flat.
- MolassesOrdinary unsulphured molasses is right here. Blackstrap is far more bitter and mineral than what the book intended, and will dominate the butter.
- Setting panAn 8-inch square pan, buttered generously, gives slabs about a quarter-inch thick. Lining with parchment and buttering that makes removal easier than butter alone.
- Marking and breakingScore the squares when the surface has firmed but the centre is still warm and yielding, a few minutes after pouring. If you wait until it is cold it will shatter along its own lines instead of yours.
- Vanilla beanAdd a one-inch piece of split bean with the other ingredients and fish it out before pouring. If using extract instead, stir it in off the heat, since alcohol-based extract boiled at 300F loses most of its aroma.
- YieldAbout 3/4 lb of candy. Store airtight; humidity will make the surface tacky within a day or two.
Butterscotch appears in British confectionery writing from the middle of the nineteenth century, and Doncaster in Yorkshire has long claimed it as a local specialty. The "-scotch" element is unexplained; one common suggestion connects it to the old sense of scotch meaning to score or notch, which is what this recipe tells you to do with the sharp-pointed knife before the slab hardens, but the derivation is not established. The cold-water test used here was the ordinary home method for judging sugar temperature in this period.