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Mexican Caramels
2 cups granulated sugar 1 cup brown sugar 1½ cups milk or cream Melt one cup of granulated sugar but do not let it brown; when a syrup add the milk or cream, then the remainder of the sugar, stirring constantly. Cook until it forms a solid ball when dropped in cold water. Pour out into a shallow pan, the bottom of which has been well greased with butter; mark off in squares and set aside to cool.
A dry-caramel milk candy of the sort American books of the period filed under "Mexican" — closer to a firm penuche than to the chewy wrapped caramel. Two things decide the outcome: how dark the first cup of sugar goes, and the exact temperature you pull it off the heat.
- The hinge: adding milk to molten sugarCaramelized sugar sits well above the boiling point of milk, and cold liquid hitting it erupts and seizes into a hard lump. Warm the milk or cream first and add it in a thin stream off the heat, then return the pan and stir until any hardened sugar has redissolved.
- "Melt one cup... but do not let it brown"In practice this is very hard to achieve; sugar begins to color as it melts. The intent is a pale amber, not a dark one — stop while it is the color of honey, since a dark caramel will make the finished candy bitter against all that sugar.
- "A solid ball when dropped in cold water"The wording points to the firmer end of the ball stages, somewhere around 244-250F on a modern thermometer. Below that the squares will not hold their edges; taken much higher the candy sets hard rather than chewy.
- Texture to expectConstant stirring plus cooling in the pan encourages small crystals, so this sets grainy and fudge-like rather than glossy and chewy. If you want it smoother, stop stirring once the sugar has dissolved and let it boil undisturbed to temperature.
- Pan and markingAn 8-inch square pan gives squares about three-quarters of an inch thick. Score the surface while the candy is still warm and just firm; once fully cold it cracks rather than cuts.
- Milk or creamWhole milk works but gives a leaner, more sugary result. Heavy cream gives the richer candy the recipe is reaching for, and its extra fat also reduces graininess.
- TimingExpect 20 to 30 minutes of boiling after the milk goes in, depending on pan width. Use a heavy pan at least three times the volume of the mixture — milk and sugar climb the sides as they boil.
- YieldKeep in a tin between sheets of waxed paper; it stays good about a week.
Candy chapters in American home cookbooks of the 1900s and 1910s record a boom in home confectionery, when cheap granulated sugar put fudge, penuche and caramels within reach of many kitchens; this recipe, like most of them, judges doneness by the cold-water test rather than by a thermometer. "Mexican" in such books was a loose label attached to almost any sugar-and-milk sweet built on caramelized sugar — the technique is the same one behind leche quemada and the panocha candies of the Southwest, often linked to Mexican dulces made by cooking down milk with sugar until it browns. What separates this version from ordinary fudge is that the browning is done first and deliberately, in a dry pan, rather than left to happen slowly in the milk.