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U. No All Mints
2 cups sugar. 1 cup water. 1 tablespoon butter. 1 teaspoon mint extract. Cook until soft ball stage. Pour out on greased marble. When a little cool work to a cream with wooden paddle; cut in small pieces. PRETTY CANDY BOWLS TO SERVE HOMEMADE CANDY IN. 2 cups pure granulated sugar. 2 tablespoons vinegar. 1 cup water. Put sugar and water, well stirred on fire; after it boils a few minutes, add vinegar. Have cup of ice water, and when sirup cracks and piles up in cup it is ready to be used. Color any delicate shade before taking from fire, but not until ready (or can be colored on marble). Pour out in small rounds on greased marble. Brush jelly glasses (inverted) with almond or peanut oil. When candy can be lifted with knife, take up, press out with fingers and form over glasses. Move on glasses often and if cooked right, it will stand alone in a few minutes; shape edges any way, but the work must be done fast. A little practice will be required to make success.
Two separate confections are run together here: a batch of pulled cream mints, and a blown-sugar bowl to serve them in. Both hinge on reading sugar temperature correctly, which a thermometer now does better than a cup of cold water.
- Soft ball, in numbersFor the mints, cook the syrup to 235-240F. Below that the patties will not set; above it they turn hard and grainy rather than creaming under the paddle.
- "Cracks and piles up in cup"That is the hard-crack test for the bowls: syrup dropped into ice water shatters rather than flattening. On a thermometer, 300-310F. Vinegar acts as an acid, inverting some of the sugar and discouraging crystallizing; the recipe has it added after the boil has been going a few minutes.
- Creaming the mintsLet the poured syrup cool until a finger can rest on the edge without pain, then work it with a paddle or bench scraper. Working too hot gives a runny mass; too cold and it seizes into a lump you cannot cut.
- Mint extract vs. mint oilA teaspoon of alcohol-based extract added to hot sugar loses much of its punch. Peppermint oil is far stronger, and a few drops stirred in off the heat gives a cleaner flavour.
- If you have no marbleA heavy sheet pan or a granite countertop, lightly oiled, will serve for the mints. The point of marble is that it pulls heat out fast and evenly; a thin pan cools the edges before the centre.
- Almond or peanut oilAny neutral oil will serve for greasing the inverted jelly glasses. Note that both peanut and almond oil carry allergen concerns.
- HumidityBoth parts fail on a damp day. Sugar at hard crack pulls moisture from the air within minutes and the bowls go sticky and slump. Choose a dry day and serve the bowls the same afternoon.
- YieldTwo cups of sugar gives a batch of several dozen small mints, depending how small they are cut. The second batch will make only a few bowls, and fewer while you are learning the timing.
- ColouringModern gel or paste colours are far more concentrated than the liquid dyes of the period; a toothpick's worth is enough for a delicate shade in this quantity.
The title is a pun of the sort that appeared in American candy and party-food columns a century ago: U. No All Mints for "you know all mints." Mary A. Wilson compiled her New Cook Book around 1920, and the candy section reflects a period when home confectionery was a genuine domestic skill rather than an occasional novelty: a marble slab, a wooden paddle and a cup of ice water were standard equipment, and the cold-water tests for soft ball and hard crack were learned by hand long before the household candy thermometer became common. The sugar bowl formed over an inverted jelly glass belongs to the same tradition as spun-sugar baskets and pulled-sugar flowers, confectioners' tricks that filtered into ambitious home kitchens for holiday tables. Wilson's closing line, that a little practice will be required, is the most honest sentence on the page.