Candied Walnuts
INGREDIENTS. -Walnuts, liqueur, clarified sugar, lemon.
Proceed in the same manner as in the preceding recipe for Candied Chestnuts, but CAPER SAUCE. flavour the sugar with a little Benedictine or other liqueur. A flavouring can also be given to the chestnuts in the same way.
This is a variation entry rather than a standalone recipe: it points back to the candied chestnut method and asks only that the syrup be scented with liqueur. Anyone working from it needs the underlying candying technique, which is straightforward but unforgiving about temperature.
- The hinge: syrup temperatureThe entry gives no stage or temperature, referring the reader back to the chestnut method. Glace nuts of this type are generally dipped in sugar boiled to about the hard-crack stage, 300-310F on a sugar thermometer; below that a coating tends to stay tacky, and much above it the sugar colours towards caramel.
- "Clarified sugar"In Beeton's usage this is sugar dissolved in water and boiled with the scum removed, sometimes clarified with egg white. Modern granulated sugar needs no clarifying; the recipe gives no quantities, so proportions are left to the cook.
- What the lemon is forA few drops of lemon juice provide the acid that inverts a little of the sugar and discourages the syrup from crystallising in the pan. Cream of tartar or glucose serves the same purpose.
- Adding the liqueurBenedictine, or any liqueur, is best added off the heat once the syrup has reached temperature, since prolonged boiling will drive off the aroma. Expect the scent to be faint, and add sparingly, as any added liquid thins the syrup and softens the coating.
- Preparing the walnutsUse fresh shelled halves, warmed in a low oven and skinned of any loose papery bitterness. Cold or damp nuts chill the syrup and make the coating thick and cloudy.
- Dipping and settingSpear each half on a fine skewer or fork, dip, and set on an oiled marble slab or oiled baking paper. Work quickly and keep the syrup over the barest heat; a pan of hard-crack sugar stiffens within a few minutes.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no quantities, and syrup cannot be reboiled indefinitely. Store the finished sweets in an airtight tin the same day, as they draw moisture from the air and go sticky.
Candied nuts belong to the confectionery end of the Victorian dessert service, where sugared chestnuts, glace fruits and burnt almonds were handed round with the dessert wines. Beeton's book treats them as small variations on a single method, which is why the walnut entry simply refers the reader back to the chestnut one; the confectioner's skill lay in the sugar boiling, not in the fruit. The syrup is to be scented with "Benedictine or other liqueur", the brand offered as one option among several; Benedictine had been commercially produced at Fecamp from 1863 and was widely sold in Britain thereafter.