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Spun Sugar
2 lbs. sugar 2 cups boiling water 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar Put ingredients in a smooth saucepan. Boil without stirring until syrup begins to discolor, which is 300 degree F. Wash off sugar which adheres to sides of saucepan, as in making fondant. Remove saucepan from fire, and place in a larger pan of cold water to instantly stop boiling. Remove from cold water, and place in saucepan of hot water. Place two broomstick-handles over backs of chairs, and spread paper on the floor under them. When syrup is slightly cooled, put dipper in syrup, remove from syrup, and shake quickly back and forth over broomhandles. Carefully take off spun sugar as soon as formed, and shape in nests, or pile lightly on a cold dish. Syrup may be colored if desired. Spun Sugar is served around bricks or moulds of frozen creams and ices.
Dippers for spinning sugar are made of coarse wires; about twenty wires, ten inches long, are put in a bundle, and fastened with wire coiled round and round to form a handle.
Meringue I Whites 2 eggs 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla 2 tablespoons powdered sugar Beat whites until stiff, add sugar gradually and continue beating, then add flavoring.
Spun sugar is a sugar-syrup technique rather than a frosting proper, and the whole thing hinges on temperature and humidity. Read the syrup with a candy thermometer and pick a dry day.
- The temperature is the recipe300°F is about the low end of hard crack. The original relies on the syrup just beginning to take colour as the visual cue, but visible colour normally comes later than 300°F, so trust a clipped-on candy thermometer over the eye. Below hard crack the threads are likely to sag and weep.
- Cream of tartarThe quarter teaspoon is there to invert part of the sucrose so the syrup does not crystallise into a grainy mass. Do not leave it out, and do not stir the syrup once it is boiling.
- "Smooth saucepan"A heavy pan with no scratches or seams where crystals can lodge. Wash the sugar down from the sides as directed, which is the standard fondant precaution against seeding.
- The two water bathsThe cold-water dip stops carryover cooking instantly; the hot-water bath then holds the syrup at a workable viscosity so it does not set solid in the pan while you spin. Keep the hot water well below a boil.
- The dipperThe wire bundle described at the end can be replaced by a whisk with the closed loop at the top cut off, or by two forks held together. Anything that presents many thin parallel points will throw threads.
- Rig and cleanupTwo broom handles across chair backs still works; a pair of long wooden spoons taped to a counter edge over parchment is tidier. Sugar threads shatter and scatter, so put down more paper than seems necessary.
- HumiditySpun sugar absorbs atmospheric moisture and goes limp and sticky. On a humid day it may collapse in under half an hour. Spin it as close to service as possible and never refrigerate it.
- Yield and useTwo pounds of sugar makes far more than one dessert needs; a fraction of the quantity will garnish a small number of servings. Its intended job here is a nest or veil set around moulded ice cream.
Spun sugar belongs to the ornamental confectionery taught in the American cookery schools of the turn of the twentieth century, where fondant, caramel and spun sugar appear as related lessons in syrup temperatures. The instruction to wash down the pan "as in making fondant" suggests the book expects the reader to have already worked through the earlier lessons. The improvised equipment is characteristic of the period: a bundle of coarse wires bound into a handle, broom handles laid over chair backs, paper on the floor. In French the threads are sucre filé, and the same technique underlies the caramel cage and the sugar veil still used on restaurant plates.