Penuche
2 cups light brown sugar 1/3 cup milk or cream 1 tablespoon butter 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar 3/4 cup chopped nuts 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Put sugar, milk, butter and cream of tartar into saucepan. Boil with as little stirring as possible until it makes a soft ball when tested in cold water. Take from fire; add nuts and vanilla; beat until thick and pour into greased tins.
A straightforward brown sugar fudge that depends entirely on cooking to the right temperature and cooling before beating. The recipe gives no thermometer reading because most kitchens of the period had none.
- Soft ball means 236-238FCook to 236-238F on a candy thermometer. Under that the penuche will not set; much over it and the finished candy turns hard and crumbly.
- Let it cool before beatingThe instruction to beat immediately off the heat is the one thing worth changing. Cool the syrup undisturbed to about 110F before beating; beating hot syrup gives large sugar crystals and a grainy texture rather than the fine, smooth grain penuche is meant to have.
- Little stirring, and a clean pan sideStirring during the boil encourages crystals to seed early. Wash any sugar off the pan wall with a wet pastry brush, or cover the pan for the first two minutes so condensing steam does the job.
- Cream of tartarThe 1/8 teaspoon inverts a fraction of the sucrose and keeps the finished candy soft. It is not optional flavoring; leaving it out gives a coarser set.
- Light brown sugarModern light brown sugar is refined white sugar with molasses added back, which need not match the brown sugar the recipe was written for. Pack it firmly when measuring.
- Pan and yieldTwo cups of sugar plus the nuts gives a little over a pound of candy. A greased 8-inch square pan, or a loaf pan for thicker pieces, is about right. Score into squares while still warm.
- NutsPecans or walnuts are traditional. Toast them first if you like; the recipe assumes raw, and either works.
Penuche is usually said to take its name from Spanish panocha or panela, terms for unrefined cane sugar pressed into loaves. It belongs to the great wave of home candy-making that followed cheap refined sugar and the reliable kitchen range in the later nineteenth century, when fudge and fondant became things an ordinary household could turn out in an afternoon.