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Corn Balls
1/2 cup white corn syrup ⅓ teaspoon, each, salt and vinegar 1 tablespoon vanilla Boil sugar, water and corn syrup without stirring until thermometer registers 260° F.; then add remaining ingredients and let boil to 264° F. Have corn in a large pan, and pour on gradually the syrup, using a spoon all of the time to turn corn that it may be evenly coated. Make into balls, and let stand in a cold place until brittle.
A hard-crack popcorn ball of the type made by the panful for Hallowe'en and church fairs. The thermometer numbers are the whole recipe; everything else is timing and speed.
- Temperature is the hingeBoth 260°F and 264°F sit inside the hard-ball range (roughly 250-265°F), so the recipe is working a narrow window within a single stage. Boil much past it and the syrup starts to set glassy; under it and the balls slump and weep overnight. Calibrate the thermometer in boiling water first.
- Proportions to expectThe quantities of sugar, water and popped corn have not survived intact in this entry, and cannot be recovered from what remains. Use a tested current recipe if you want firm numbers.
- White corn syrupWhat is now sold as light corn syrup, though modern versions are often blended with high-fructose corn syrup. It is there as an interfering agent to keep the sucrose from crystallizing, which is also why the syrup must not be stirred while it boils.
- The vinegarPlain cider or white vinegar, also an anti-crystallizing measure. It cooks off in flavor at these temperatures and should not make the candy taste sour.
- Vanilla at the endA tablespoon is a generous amount and it goes in after the first boil, so most of the alcohol flashes off in the pan. Stand back when it hits the syrup.
- Warm the cornPopped corn straight from the pan or held in a 200°F oven takes the syrup more evenly than cold corn, which chills the coating before it spreads. Use the largest bowl or roasting pan you own and keep turning.
- Forming the ballsButter your hands, work fast while the mass is still hot enough to compress, and press just enough to hold. Squeezing hard gives a dense, tooth-breaking ball.
Popcorn balls belong to the American nineteenth century, when cheap cane sugar, glucose syrup and a plentiful popcorn crop met at the country fair and the Hallowe'en party. Fannie Farmer's book files them under confections rather than desserts, alongside molasses candy and butter scotch, because they were made by the same method and by the same people. The thermometer is the point. Earlier books told you to boil until the syrup 'cracks in cold water'; the Boston Cooking School's insistence on degrees Fahrenheit, here down to a four-degree window within a single stage, is exactly the shift toward measured, repeatable instruction that made the book famous.