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Peanut Butter Candy
Two cups granulated sugar, 2/3 cup milk. Boil until soft ball in water. Add 4 tbsp. peanut butter, 1/3 cup raisins, 1/4 tsp. vanilla. Beat until creamy.
— A Contributor
A plain fudge built on the soft-ball stage, with peanut butter and raisins stirred in off the heat. The whole recipe turns on where you stop the boiling.
- Soft ball means 235-240FUse a candy thermometer and pull the pan at 236-238F. The cold-water test described here is reliable but slow, and a few degrees over gives you a crumbly, sandy fudge instead of a creamy one.
- Pan sizeTwo cups sugar and 2/3 cup milk will climb as it boils. A 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan is right; anything smaller boils over.
- StirringStir only until the sugar dissolves, then leave it alone. Agitation during the boil seeds premature crystals and coarsens the texture.
- Cool before beatingThe original says beat until creamy but not when. Let the syrup drop to about 110F, then beat. Beating hot syrup produces large crystals and a grainy result.
- Peanut butterOld-style peanut butter was simply ground peanuts. Modern stabilized commercial brands behave much the same here; natural grind separates a little but still works. Four tablespoons is roughly a quarter cup.
- MilkWhole milk, not skim. The fat is doing structural work in a recipe with no butter or cream in it.
- Setting and yieldPour into a buttered pan, roughly 5 by 5 inches, as soon as it thickens and loses gloss; it stiffens fast. Expect around a pound of candy, or about 16 small squares.
- If it seizes in the panReturn it to low heat with a spoonful or two of milk and stir until smooth, then beat again once cooled.
Peanut butter reached American kitchens as a novelty health food in the 1890s and was an ordinary grocery item by the 1910s and 1920s, which is when church and society cookbooks begin filling their confectionery chapters with it. Philathea cook books were compiled by Philathea classes, adult Bible-study classes for women that began in a Baptist Sunday school and spread through the wider Baraca-Philathea movement across denominations; recipes were gathered from members and sold to raise funds, which is why so many are credited to a contributor rather than an author. This one is essentially a basic milk fudge with the flavoring left to whatever was in the cupboard, and the raisins may simply have been what was to hand rather than a considered pairing.