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Cocoanut Cream Balls
1 pound pulverized sugar. 1 teaspoonful powdered gum arabic. 5 tablespoonfuls water. 2 tablespoonfuls cocoanut, minced. 2 tablespoonfuls currants, minced. 1 teaspoonful lemon extract.
Dissolve the gum in the water hot and stir in the sugar gradually, flavor, fruit and cocoanut. Work the paste on the table with sugar until it is firm enough, cut off pieces and roll into balls a little larger than cherries. Sugar well outside and let dry. The same can be made with candy colored pink. The foregoing kinds are all easy to make because there is no boiling of sugar.
An uncooked sugar paste — essentially a gum paste fondant — that needs no thermometer and no boiling. The whole thing turns on getting the gum arabic fully dissolved before the sugar goes in.
- Pulverized sugarEssentially confectioners' (icing) sugar, though the period grade was pure ground sugar. Modern boxed versions carry around 3% cornstarch as an anti-caking agent, which makes the paste slightly stiffer and duller; expect to need a touch less than the full pound, or a spoonful more water.
- Gum arabicStill sold as acacia gum, in powder or tears, through baking and confectionery suppliers. Dissolve the powder in the hot water first and let it sit a few minutes until there are no grains — undissolved gum makes gritty specks that never disappear. If using tears rather than powder, soak them well ahead; they dissolve slowly.
- "Dissolve the gum in the water hot"Heat the five tablespoons of water to just below a simmer, off the heat stir in the gum, then add sugar gradually. Boiling water is not needed and evaporation here matters — five tablespoons against a pound of sugar is a narrow margin.
- CocoanutPeriod coconut was unsweetened dried shred. Unsweetened desiccated coconut is the direct equivalent; sweetened flaked coconut will make the balls cloying and its moisture will soften the paste. Mince it fine, as directed, or the balls will not roll smooth.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh red or black currants. Mince them small — whole ones tear the paste as you roll.
- Working the pasteIt should feel like firm marzipan, not sticky. Knead in additional confectioners' sugar on the board until it stops taking sugar. Too wet and the balls slump as they dry; too dry and they crack.
- ColoringNineteenth-century pink usually came from cochineal or carmine, though adulterated mineral reds were also documented and some were genuinely dangerous. Use modern food coloring, and gel rather than liquid so you do not slacken the paste.
- DryingSpread on parchment or a rack in a dry room for 12 to 24 hours until the outside is firm and the center still soft. Humid weather will lengthen this considerably. Store airtight once dry.
- YieldRoughly four to five dozen balls at the stated size, depending on how much extra sugar the paste takes.
Sweets like these were built on a gum binder rather than on boiled syrup, which is precisely the selling point the author names in his closing line. Boiling sugar to a reliable degree demanded a thermometer or a practiced hand at the cold-water test. Gum arabic, the dried sap of acacia trees and largely a Sudanese export then as now, had been used in European and American confectionery for centuries, and is the gum behind gum pastilles and old-style gum drops.