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Wintergreen Drops
The same as the preceding, but make them pink with a few drops of cochineal or vegetable red coloring and use wintergreen extract for flavoring. These drops have a smooth surface but are slightly granulated inside. Clove drops, cinnamon drops, etc., same way.
A one-line variation on the drop candy in the preceding entry: boiled sugar, worked until it clouds, then dropped in coins onto paper or marble. Everything that matters is in the sugar work, since the wintergreen is only a few drops at the end.
- The hinge is controlled grainingThe described texture, "smooth surface but slightly granulated inside," points to a syrup deliberately worked until it just begins to cloud and then dropped at once, rather than left clear. Work it too far and the batch can set rough and chalky; too little and the drops stay clear and glassy like hard candy.
- Temperature the old books left outDrop candies of this kind are generally boiled to about the soft-ball stage, in the region of 238-240F on a modern thermometer, though this book gives no figure. Boiled much beyond that the drops tend to be dry and crumbly; short of it they may not hold their shape on the paper.
- Wintergreen extract, not oil of wintergreenThe recipe calls for extract. Pure oil of wintergreen is nearly all methyl salicylate and is toxic in small amounts; food-grade wintergreen flavouring oils are sold for confectionery but are far stronger than an alcohol extract and must be used by the drop, not the spoonful. Undiluted oil sold as a scent or liniment ingredient should not be used at all.
- Add flavour off the heatAlcohol-based extracts flash off in hot syrup. Take the pan from the fire, let the bubbling subside, then stir in extract and colour just before the mixture clouds.
- CochinealStill available as carmine or cochineal extract, made from the dried insect, and still the reason a pink candy may not be vegetarian. "Vegetable red" was the period term for a red colouring that was not a mineral pigment; any modern red food colouring stands in for it. The recipe asks only for a few drops, enough for a pale pink.
- Dropping themA paper cone or a small funnel with a stick to plug it gives even coins; a teaspoon works but the drops spread unevenly. Work fast on parchment or a lightly oiled marble slab, since the mass stiffens within a couple of minutes and must be rewarmed gently if it sets in the pan.
- The other flavoursClove and cinnamon drops are made from the same syrup. Clove and cinnamon flavourings are commonly sold as oils, which are far stronger than alcohol extracts; if using those, add them by the drop, tasting a smear of syrup on a cold spoon rather than the hot pan.
- Yield and keepingA pound of sugar makes several dozen small drops. Once fully set, layer them between waxed paper in an airtight tin; they soften and weep in humid air if left open.
Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), also called checkerberry or teaberry, is a native North American plant, and its flavour is often said to be one of the few in the nineteenth-century confectioner's repertoire that is distinctly American rather than borrowed from Europe. Drop candies like these are generally taken to have been staples of the commercial pastry cook and the druggist's counter alike: cheap sugar, a boiling pan, and a paper cone, with the whole range of flavours - peppermint, wintergreen, clove, cinnamon, lemon - built on one base syrup, which is exactly why this entry is three sentences long and simply points back to the preceding recipe. The colouring note is a period marker too. Cochineal, made from dried scale insects imported from Mexico and the Canaries, had been the reliable red of the kitchen for centuries; the author offers either without comment.