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Velvet Molasses Candy
1 cup molasses 3 tablespoons vinegar 3 cups sugar 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar 1 cup boiling water 1/2 cup melted butter 1/4 teaspoon soda Put first four ingredients in kettle placed over front of range. As soon as boiling-point is reached, add cream of tartar. Boil until, when tried in cold water, mixture will become brittle. Stir constantly during last part of cooking When nearly done, add butter and soda. Pour into a buttered pan and pull same as Molasses Candy. While pulling, add one teaspoon vanilla, one-half teaspoon lemon extract, few drops oil of peppermint, or few drops oil of wintergreen.
A hard-crack pulled taffy of the old taffy-pull sort. The whole recipe turns on the sugar temperature and on catching the candy at the moment it is cool enough to handle but still plastic.
- The hinge: cook to 265-270FThe hinge: the cold-water test. "Brittle when tried in cold water" is the crack stage; the book gives no thermometer figure. Pulled molasses taffy is usually taken somewhere between about 265F (hard ball) and 300F (hard crack) - a genuinely brittle test sits at the upper end. Under-cooked, the candy stays sticky and will not hold a pull; much over and it scorches and turns bitter from the molasses solids.
- "Front of the range"On a wood or coal range the front was the hotter zone. On a modern burner use medium-high in a heavy, deep pan of at least 4 quarts, since the mixture climbs when it boils.
- Order of addingCombine molasses, vinegar, sugar and water, bring to the boil, then stir in the cream of tartar. Both the vinegar and the cream of tartar are there as acids to invert some of the sugar and keep the finished candy from turning grainy.
- Butter and soda at the endSafest added off the heat or with the pan pulled aside, though the recipe says only "when nearly done." The soda reacts with the acid and molasses and foams, which is generally taken to be the source of the candy's "velvet" open texture; expect the mixture to swell in the pan.
- MolassesUse ordinary unsulphured baking molasses. Blackstrap is far more bitter and mineral than what this book meant and will dominate the flavourings.
- Flavouring oilsOil of peppermint and oil of wintergreen are concentrated essential oils, not extracts; two or three drops flavours the whole batch. Choose one flavouring rather than layering them, as the original list is a set of alternatives.
- PullingLet the poured slab cool until you can press it without denting your thumbprint permanently, then butter your hands well and pull until the candy lightens in colour and stiffens. Two people make this much easier. Cut with buttered scissors into pieces and wrap in waxed paper, or the pieces will fuse.
- YieldUpwards of 2 pounds of candy. Work in a dry room; humidity makes pulled taffy weep and soften.