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Ice Cream Candy
3 cups sugar ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 cup boiling water 1/2 tablespoon vinegar Boil ingredients together without stirring, until, when tried in cold water, mixture will become brittle. Turn on a well buttered platter to cool. As edges cool, fold towards centre. As soon as it can be handled, pull until white and glossy. While pulling, flavor as desired, using vanilla, orange extract, coffee extract, oil of sassafras, or melted chocolate. Cut in sticks or small pieces.
A pulled sugar candy of the old school: the whole result depends on cooking the syrup to the right temperature and then working it while it is still hot enough to move but cool enough to hold.
- The cream of tartar amountThe printed "14 teaspoon" is a broken fraction; the standard reading is 1/4 teaspoon. Its job, with the vinegar, is to invert some of the sugar so the candy pulls smooth instead of turning grainy.
- "Brittle in cold water" is 300-310FUse a candy thermometer rather than the cold-water test. Below about 300F the sticks stay soft and sag; much above 310F the sugar starts to color and the finished candy will not pull white.
- Do not stir, and wash the sidesThe instruction to boil without stirring is the hinge. A single stray crystal off the pan wall will seed the whole batch grainy; brush the sides down once with a wet pastry brush early on, cover for two minutes to let steam do the work, then leave it alone.
- Skip the oil of sassafrasSassafras oil is high in safrole, which the FDA prohibited as a food flavoring in 1960. Vanilla, orange or coffee extract, or melted chocolate, all listed in the original, do the same job.
- The pouring surfaceA buttered marble slab is far better than a platter; ceramic holds heat and the candy sets unevenly at the rim. Butter it generously, and butter your hands as well.
- Pulling and heatWait until the mass has cooled enough to handle safely; work in buttered rubber gloves or wait a minute longer. The candy is ready when it stops slumping and takes a fold. Pull until it turns opaque, pale and satiny, usually five to ten minutes, then twist into a rope.
- Cutting and storingCut the rope with buttered kitchen shears as it firms, working quickly, since it goes rigid within a few minutes. Wrap the pieces in waxed paper and keep them airtight; humid air makes pulled candy weep and stick within a day.
- YieldThree cups of sugar gives roughly 1 1/4 lb of finished candy, about sixty small pieces.
- Choose a dry dayPulled sugar picks up atmospheric moisture as it is worked. In damp weather the candy stays tacky no matter how well the syrup was cooked.
The name has nothing to do with dairy: pulling aerates hot sugar into fine parallel threads that scatter light, so a clear amber syrup turns opaque, pale and creamy-looking, and the name ice cream candy is generally traced to that resemblance. It belongs to the same family as molasses taffy and the candy-pull, a standing form of American winter entertainment in which a boiled syrup was divided among buttered hands around a kitchen and worked until it whitened. Fannie Farmer's confections chapter is full of these hand-worked sweets. The vinegar and cream of tartar are the technical heart of it: both supply acid that splits some sucrose into glucose and fructose during boiling, which is what keeps the pulled candy from crystallizing into sand.