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Chocolate Fudge
Two cups of granulated sugar, two-thirds cup of milk, one ounce of butter, two ounces of unsweetened chocolate, one-half teaspoon of Larkin Vanilla Flavoring Extract.
Put sugar and milk over fire until the boiling-point is reached. Add butter and allow to boil until the syrup will form a soft ball if tried in cold water. Take from fire, add the Chocolate and Vanilla Extract, and stir until it snaps. Quickly pour into a buttered dish, and when partly cool cut into squares.
A small, straightforward batch of old-style boiled fudge — about a pound of candy. Everything depends on the temperature at the end of the boil and on how long you beat it afterward.
- Soft ball, in numbersThe cold-water test corresponds to roughly 234-240F on a candy thermometer. Low in that range gives fudge that struggles to set; above it gives a progressively firmer, harder result.
- "Stir until it snaps"This is the hinge of the recipe. It most likely means beating the syrup until it loses its gloss, thickens, and begins to hold the mark of the spoon — the point at which the sugar recrystallizes into fine grains. Pour the instant it happens or it will set in the pan.
- Let it cool firstModern candy practice is to cool the syrup undisturbed to about 110F before beating. Beating a still-hot syrup, as written here, tends to throw larger sugar crystals and so a coarser, sandier texture.
- The chocolateTwo ounces of unsweetened chocolate is two standard squares. Chop it fine before you start so it melts quickly in the hot syrup rather than sitting in lumps while you beat.
- Larkin Vanilla Flavoring ExtractA house brand sold by the Larkin Company, which published this book. Any pure vanilla extract, half a teaspoon, does the same job.
- Butter measured by weightOne ounce is two tablespoons. The recipe has it go in once the milk and sugar have reached the boil rather than at the start.
- Pan and yieldNo dish size is given. An 8x4 loaf pan or a small square pan, buttered, gives fudge about three-quarters of an inch thick. Expect roughly a pound, or 16 to 20 squares.
- CuttingScore it while still warm and firm, as directed. Fully cooled fudge of this type crumbles at the edges rather than cutting clean.
Good Things to Eat came from the Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York, a soap manufacturer that built an enormous mail-order business by giving away premiums — furniture, china, and cookbooks — to customers who bought its products in bulk. The recipes name Larkin extracts and flavorings throughout, which is the point: the book was advertising that happened also to be useful. Fudge itself was a comparatively new sweet when this was printed. Its origins are uncertain: the earliest known references point to Baltimore in the mid-1880s, and it is often associated with the craze at American women's colleges in the 1890s, where students were said to make it over gas lamps in their rooms. Its appeal was that it needed no candy-making skill beyond the cold-water test and no equipment beyond a saucepan, which made it a natural fit for a promotional cookbook aimed at ordinary home kitchens.