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Caramel Filling
Take one and one-half cups of brown sugar; one cup of milk; one scant tablespoon of butter; one-half tablespoon of vanilla. Place the milk, sugar, and butter on the fire in a saucepan set in another containing boiling water and cook until thick. Take from the fire and beat it hard until stiff. Then add the vanilla.
A plain brown-sugar caramel filling of the fudge type: cook, then beat until it sets. The whole result depends on how far the syrup is cooked and how hard it is beaten afterward.
- "A saucepan set in another"This is a double boiler, and it protects the milk and sugar from scorching. With water boiling in the lower pan the mixture stays just below the boil, so it thickens only by slow evaporation and can take a long time.
- If you want it in ten minutesIf you want it faster -- Cook it directly over medium heat in a heavy saucepan, stirring, to about 238F on a candy thermometer — the soft-ball stage, which is the likely target behind "cook until thick." A thermometer removes much of the guesswork the original leaves in.
- How thick is thickOff the heat, a drop of the syrup in cold water should form a ball that flattens between the fingers. Undercooked, the filling never stiffens and runs off the cake; overcooked past about 245F it turns grainy and hard as you beat it.
- Beating"Beat it hard until stiff" means beating as it cools, which forces small sugar crystals and gives the fudge-like set. Let it cool to about 110F first, then beat — beating while very hot gives a coarse, sandy texture. A stand mixer or wooden spoon both work; expect 5 to 10 minutes by hand.
- Vanilla lastAdded off the heat, as directed, so the alcohol and aromatics do not cook off. The half tablespoon called for (about 1 1/2 teaspoons) is plenty by modern extract strength.
- Brown sugarLight brown gives the caramel note the name promises; dark brown makes it noticeably molasses-forward. Either works, but pack it when measuring or the syrup will be thin.
- Yield and spreadingAbout 1 1/4 cups, enough to fill and thinly top a two-layer 8- or 9-inch cake. It sets fast, so spread it while just warm; if it seizes, work in a teaspoon of hot milk at a time.
Caramel filling of this kind belongs to the American age of boiled-sugar frostings, when a household cook judged doneness by the cold-water test rather than by a thermometer, which was not yet a common kitchen item. It is essentially brown-sugar fudge stopped one stage short of candy: the same milk-and-sugar syrup beaten to a spreadable cream instead of poured out to set. "Caramel" here signals the flavor of cooked brown sugar rather than the darker, near-burnt sugar caramel of French confectionery. Butterick's cook book was issued by the pattern company that also published The Delineator, and was aimed at a middle-class housekeeper baking layer cakes at home.