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Taffy Apples
1 C granulated sugar 1 C brown sugar 2 C dark corn syrup 2 T vinegar 1 T butter Boil until brittle when dropped in cold water. Place skewers in apples and dip in the syrup-set aside on oiled pan to harden. Makes 2 dozen small apples. Mrs. Linna Corlett.
A hard-crack sugar coating for apples on sticks, from the candy pages of a church fundraising book. The method is legible even where the ingredient column has broken down, and the whole thing hinges on cooking the syrup far enough.
- Read "brittle in cold water" as 300-310FThe cold-water test described here is the hard-crack stage. A thermometer reads 300-310F; a drop of syrup in cold water should snap rather than bend. Anything short of that gives a coating that stays tacky and slides off the fruit.
- The vinegar is doing workTwo tablespoons of vinegar inverts part of the sugar so the syrup stays clear and glassy instead of turning grainy. Corn syrup or a pinch of cream of tartar does the same job in modern candy recipes.
- T means tablespoonRead the abbreviation as tablespoon; this page otherwise writes 'tbsp.' and 'tsp.' in full. The butter most likely keeps the coating from setting bone-hard and helps it release from the pan.
- Sugar and water quantitiesThe proportions for the syrup itself cannot be recovered from this entry; a fragment reading 'cups sugar' survives but the number is lost, and no water quantity is given. Something in the region of 2 cups sugar to 1/2 cup water would give a workable hard-crack coating, but that is a reconstruction, not the original figure.
- SkewersWooden skewers or short lengths of dowel; push them into the stem end so the apple hangs straight when dipped. Chopsticks work. Dry the apples thoroughly first or the syrup will bead and slip.
- Oiled pan, not waxed paperOiled pan -- The instruction to set them on an oiled pan is worth following: a lightly oiled sheet pan releases hardened sugar cleanly.
- YieldThe recipe claims two dozen small apples, which implies fruit considerably smaller than most apples sold today. How far the syrup actually goes cannot be judged, since the sugar and water quantities are missing from the entry.
- Handling the syrupSugar at 300F causes deep burns and will not wipe off. Keep a bowl of cold water at the stove and tilt the pan toward you when dipping rather than reaching over it.
Candy-coated apples on sticks belong to the same American autumn as the church supper and the school fair. The clear, brittle, vinegar-sharpened coating here is the older form: a plain hard-crack syrup, sometimes reddened with cinnamon, distinct from the caramel-and-condensed-milk version that became common later in the twentieth century. Community cookbooks of this kind were often compiled by congregations to raise money, with each contributor's name printed beside her recipe -- this one carries 'Mrs. Linna Corlett'.