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Sultana Fudge
Melt one-fourth cup of butter, and stir into it two cups of sugar, one-fourth cup of molasses, one-half cup of milk. Boil four minutes. Stir in two squares of unsweetened chocolate, scraped fine; boil four minutes. Add one-half teaspoon of Larkin Vanilla Flavoring Extract. Take from fire and beat it until it will spread. Stir in two-thirds cup of chopped English walnuts, and one-third cup of sultana raisins; pour in buttered tins. Cool and cut into squares.
A standard beaten fudge, with molasses for chew and sultanas for a little tartness against the chocolate. The one thing the recipe leaves to chance is the temperature of the syrup, and that is the whole difference between fudge and sauce.
- Watch the thermometer, not the clock"Boil four minutes" twice assumes a particular pan, burner and altitude. Cook the mixture to the soft-ball stage, 236-238F, and pull it there regardless of elapsed time; below that it will not set, above it and the fudge turns dry and crumbly.
- Squares of chocolateA square of unsweetened baking chocolate is 1 ounce, so this calls for 2 ounces. Scraping or chopping it fine is worth doing, since it goes into hot syrup that you do not want to hold on the heat while it melts.
- Larkin Vanilla Flavoring ExtractA house brand sold by the Larkin Company along with its soaps and premiums. Any pure vanilla extract stands in at the same half teaspoon.
- SultanasGolden seedless raisins, paler than dark ones. Ordinary raisins work; if they are dry, a brief soak in hot water and a thorough drain keeps them from pulling moisture out of the candy.
- Beating is the hingeLet the syrup cool undisturbed to about 110F before you start beating, then beat until it loses its gloss and thickens to a spreadable paste. Beating while it is still hot gives coarse, grainy sugar crystals; beating too long past the dulling point sets it in the bowl.
- Add-ins last, and quicklyNuts and raisins go in at the moment the fudge dulls, and the mixture goes straight into the pan. It stiffens fast once it turns.
- Pan and yield"Buttered tins" means a shallow buttered pan; an 8-inch square gives fudge about three-quarters of an inch thick, or about three dozen small squares. Score it while still warm and cut when fully cool.
Chocolate fudge belongs to the American college and boarding-school candy craze of the 1890s, when it spread through women's colleges as a chafing-dish sweet that needed no candy-making skill beyond a saucepan and a willing arm; recipes named for Vassar, Smith and Wellesley circulated widely in print. The Larkin Company of Buffalo, which built a mail-order business on soap sold with household premiums, published cookery booklets of this kind to keep its grocery and extract lines in front of customers, which is why a brand name sits in the middle of the ingredient list where a generic one would do. "Sultana" refers to the pale seedless grape long associated with Turkish and Greek export trade.