Caramels
1 pound sugar 1/2 cup milk Butter size of walnut 1 teaspoon vanilla 6 tablespoons syrup molas 2 ounces chocolate Boil together the sugar, molasses, chocolate and milk until the mixture hardens when dropped in cold water. When nearly done add the butter; flavor after the candy is taken from the fire.
A short, blunt candy formula of the kind that assumes the cook already knows the cold-water test. The whole recipe turns on how far you carry the boil.
- The hinge: how far to boil"Hardens when dropped in cold water" points to the firm-ball to hard-ball range. For caramels you can chew, stop around 245-250F on a thermometer; carried much past that they set progressively firmer and harder to chew.
- "6 tablespoons syrup molas"A truncated or garbled line; the method that follows names only molasses, so read it as molasses. Six tablespoons of molasses alone will give a strong, dark, slightly bitter caramel; substituting light corn syrup for part of it keeps the texture smooth and the flavor closer to modern taste.
- ChocolateTwo ounces of chocolate in a recipe of this period means unsweetened baking chocolate, commonly sold in cakes scored into squares. Do not substitute chips or eating chocolate, which carry their own sugar and emulsifiers and will throw the balance off.
- Butter size of walnutAbout 1 ounce, or 2 tablespoons — a shelled walnut, not the whole nut. It goes in near the end so it does not scorch or break the emulsion during the long boil.
- Sugar quantityA pound of granulated sugar is roughly 2 1/4 cups. With only half a cup of milk the mixture starts very stiff; stir until it dissolves before it comes to a boil, or you will get grain in the finished candy.
- Milk, not creamModern caramels lean on cream or evaporated milk for the soft chew and dairy flavor. Half a cup of plain milk gives a firmer, more old-fashioned candy that sets closer to a chew-toffee than a Kraft caramel.
- Pan and finishingUse a heavy saucepan at least four times the volume of the mixture — milk and sugar climb hard. Pour into a buttered 8-inch square pan, let it set until firm but not cold, then score into squares with an oiled knife and cut through when fully cool.
- YieldAbout 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds, or roughly 60 small squares from an 8-inch pan. Wrap each in waxed paper; unwrapped, they weld together within a day.
Chocolate caramels were often described as an American confection of the late nineteenth century, and their commercial boom is usually traced to the caramel trade of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where Milton Hershey made his first fortune before turning to chocolate bars. By the time this book was compiled, caramels had passed firmly into the home candy repertoire: sugar, molasses, a little dairy and a couple of squares of baking chocolate were pantry staples, and the cold-water test needed no explanation to any cook who had made fudge or taffy. The terseness of the instructions is itself a period marker: knowledge of sugar stages that the domestic-science thermometer would only gradually replace seems to have been taken for granted.