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Almond Hardbake
Blanch some almonds and split them in two. Dry them in a moderate heat without coloring them. Lay them with the flat sides down on an oiled layer cake pan, entirely covering it. The almonds may be laid in regular order, like wreaths, or in groups like rosettes, if desired. Pour over the nuts enough sugar and water boiled to the crack, to entirely cover them. Mark off squares or circles on the candy while it is warm and it can be broken in regular pieces when cold.
A clear almond brittle set in a shallow pan, more assembly than cookery once the syrup is right. Everything depends on taking the sugar far enough.
- "Boiled to the crack"The crack stage, which in period usage corresponds roughly to what a modern thermometer reads as hard crack, somewhere around 290-310F. Much below that the sheet stays tacky and bends instead of snapping; taken further the sugar darkens and picks up a burnt edge.
- No sugar quantity is givenThe original leaves the syrup to judgement. As a working proportion, 2 cups granulated sugar to 1/2 cup water covers a standard 9-inch layer pan; a tablespoon of corn syrup or a pinch of cream of tartar in the pot guards against the batch crystallizing into a grainy mass.
- Drying the almonds"a moderate heat without coloring them" asks only that the split halves dry through without taking any color; the original gives no temperature. A low oven for 10-15 minutes, watched so no color develops, does the job.
- BlanchingPour boiling water over shelled almonds, stand two minutes, drain, and the skins slip off under thumb pressure. Split them along the natural seam while still damp; once dry they shatter.
- The panA metal layer cake pan brushed with a neutral oil, not butter, which contains water and milk solids. A rimmed sheet pan can be substituted for a thinner sheet.
- PouringTake the pan off the heat, let the bubbling subside for a few seconds, and pour in one steady stream from the center out. Do not spread it with a spoon or you will drag the almond pattern out of place.
- MarkingScore the squares while the sheet is warm but no longer fluid, roughly a minute or two after pouring, using an oiled knife. Wait too long and it will crack along its own lines rather than yours.
- Yield and keepingA 9-inch pan will give roughly a pound of candy, scored into a couple of dozen small pieces for a sweet tray. Store it airtight with parchment between layers; humidity makes the surface sticky quickly.
Hardbake was an English street and fair sweet through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a slab of hard toffee studded with almonds, sold in broken lumps by the penny's worth and familiar enough to appear as a stock item in Victorian writing about London hawkers. Older versions were made with treacle or brown sugar and were dark rather than clear; this one is the refined parlor version, clear sugar poured over blanched halves arranged in wreaths and rosettes so that the pattern shows through the glass-like candy. Sweets of this kind belonged to the tray of homemade confectionery set out with nuts and dried fruit at the end of a party meal, where the visual arrangement mattered as much as the flavor.