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Honey Taffy
1/4 TEASPOON SALT I CUP SUGAR Cook slowly to firm ball stage. Pour in buttered pans to cool. While it's still hot you can coat peeled roasted chestnuts or peeled apples on a stick. Or pull it white when cool and cut in sticks.
A boiled sugar candy of the simplest kind, meant to be made over a campfire and used three ways: as a poured slab, as a coating for roasted chestnuts or apples on a stick, and as a pulled taffy. Everything depends on reading the sugar temperature accurately.
- Firm ball stageThat is 244-250F on a candy thermometer. Without one, drop a little syrup into cold water: it should form a ball that holds its shape but still yields to pressure between the fingers.
- Honey in the syrupThe title calls for honey, but the surviving text gives no quantity; only salt and sugar are listed. Honey scorches more readily than plain sugar syrup, so keep the heat low and stir only until the sugar is dissolved.
- Pan preparationButter the pan generously and have it ready before the syrup reaches temperature. Poured sugar sets quickly, so there is little time between reaching temperature and pouring.
- Coating chestnuts and applesWork over the hot pan and dip quickly; the syrup at 245F will burn skin badly and clings rather than dripping off. Set dipped pieces on buttered parchment or a buttered plate, not on cloth or bare wood.
- Pulling it whiteLet the slab cool until it can be handled with buttered hands, then fold and stretch repeatedly. The whitening is air worked into the sugar, and the taffy stiffens as you go; cut it into sticks with buttered scissors before it hardens past cutting.
- Weather mattersPulled candy is difficult on a humid day, as the sugar draws moisture from the air and stays tacky. Cool, dry conditions give a taffy that snaps.
Pulled sugar candy belongs to a long tradition of the "taffy pull" as a social event, common at American gatherings through the nineteenth century, when a batch of boiled syrup was cooled on a buttered slab and pulled in pairs until it turned pale and glossy. Honey versions were made where honey was the sweetener at hand. The instruction to coat roasted chestnuts or a peeled apple on a stick suggests an open-fire setting, with whatever fruit or nut the fire had already cooked.