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Boiled Sugar for Confections
Eleven tests are considered for boiling sugar: - Small thread, 215° F.
Large thread, 217° Pearl, 220° Large pearl, 222° The blow, 230° The feather, 232° Soft ball, 238° Hard ball, 248° Small crack, 290° Crack, 310° Caramel, 350° Fondant, the basis of all French candy, is made of sugar and water boiled together (with a small quantity of cream of tartar to prevent sugar from granulating) to soft ball, 238° F. The professional confectioner is able to decide when syrup has boiled to the right temperature by sound while boiling, and by testing in cold water; these tests at first seem somewhat difficult to the amateur, but only a little experience is necessary to make fondant successfully. A sugar thermometer is often employed, and proves valuable, as by its use one need not exercise his judgment. 2½ lbs. sugar
This is Farmer's reference table for sugar boiling, plus the bare bones of fondant. The temperatures are usable but do not all match modern candy charts, and the ingredient list is cut short at the sugar.
- Compare with a modern chartThe upper stages line up reasonably well — soft ball 238°F, hard ball 248°F, caramel 350°F — but the lower ones do not. Modern charts put thread at about 230°F and soft crack at 270-290°F, where this book has thread at 215-217°F and small crack at 290°F. Trust the number for the stage you actually want rather than the name.
- Calibrate firstEvery degree matters between soft ball and hard ball. Boil water and check that your thermometer reads 212°F; if it reads 209°F, add three degrees to each target.
- AltitudeSugar stages drop roughly 1°F for every 500 feet above sea level. At 5,000 feet, soft ball is closer to 228°F than 238°F. The 1896 table assumes Boston, essentially sea level.
- The cold-water testDrop a little syrup into a cup of cold — not iced — water and work it with your fingers. Soft ball forms a lump that flattens when lifted out; hard ball holds its shape. Keep changing the water, since a warm cup reads several degrees high.
- Proportions for the fondantThe text stops at "2½ lbs. sugar." A common proportion of the period is roughly 1 cup water to every 2 cups sugar, with cream of tartar on the order of 1/8 teaspoon per pound of sugar — the recipe itself asks only for "a small quantity," and too much acid will keep the fondant from setting firm.
- The hinge: no stray crystalsStir only until the sugar dissolves, then stop entirely. Wash any grains down from the side of the pan with a wet brush and cover the pan for the first few minutes so steam does the work. A single crystal falling back in will seed the whole batch coarse.
- Cooling and beatingPour the syrup out onto a marble slab or platter without scraping the pan, and let it cool undisturbed to about 110°F before working it. Beating hot syrup gives gritty fondant; beating it cool gives the fine white paste that takes flavour and coating.
- Ripening and yieldFondant improves if wrapped and left a day before use. Two and a half pounds of sugar makes a large batch — on the order of three pounds of fondant, enough for several dozen centres — and it keeps for weeks well covered in the refrigerator.
The eleven tests are a direct inheritance from French confectionery, where the stages carried names — filé, perlé, soufflé, plume, boulé, cassé, caramel — that Farmer renders as thread, pearl, blow, feather, ball, crack. The older names describe what a confectioner saw: dipping a skimmer and blowing through it to raise bubbles at "the blow," or seeing the syrup stream off in feathery sheets. What makes this page a period document is the last line about the thermometer, which "proves valuable, as by its use one need not exercise his judgment." That is the whole argument of the Boston Cooking School in one sentence — Farmer's insistence on level measurements and numbers over the pinch-and-instinct method was what made her 1896 book so widely trusted, and candy, where ten degrees separates fudge from toffee, was the strongest case she had.