Peanut Candy
1 pound of sugar. 8 ounces of peanuts.
Make the peanuts hot in the oven. Set the sugar over the fire in a kettle to melt without any water. Stir it a little. When it is all melted and of, the color of golden syrup or light molasses mix in the peanuts, pour the candy into a buttered shallow pan and when nearly cold cut it into strips and blocks.
Hickory nut and almond candy is made in the above manner, and will be better with a pound of the nuts instead of half a pound. In the same manner with a pound of grated cocoanut a brown variety may be made to match the white and red cocoanut caramels (called also cocoanut cakes and cocoanut gems) described at number 151. Nougat is the French name of nut candies made by melting the sugar without water as in the foregoing receipts.
Nougat Baskets-Corbeilles de Noix.
The hickory nut, almond, pecan, or cocoanut candies made as directed for peanut candy may be pressed while cooling into basket shapes of tin or crockery ware, and sticks and twists of the same placed for handles and borders. Very small baskets formed in fancy gem pans are used to fill with strawberries or other articles for ornamental purposes on set supper tables. For this purpose the proportion of nuts may be increased to 1 1/2 or even 2 pounds to 1 pound of sugar.