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Fudges: Cocoanut
Cocoanut Fudge 1 tablespoon butter 3/4 cup milk 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup shredded cocoanut 3/4 teaspoon vanilla Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and milk, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238 degrees F., or until candy will form a soft ball when tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon, or work with a spatula, until candy begins to get sugary. Add cocoanut and vanilla, spread in a shallow buttered pan, and mark in squares.
Cocoanut Cream Bars Make Cocoanut Fudge by preceding recipe, cut in two-inch strips, dip one end in melted coating chocolate, and lay on wax paper or table oil-cloth until chocolate is firm.
Coffee Fudge 3 tablespoons butter 1 cup strong coffee 2 cups brown sugar 1 cup nut meats Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and coffee, stir until dissolved, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 240 degrees F., or until candy will form a soft ball when a little is tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon, or work with a spatula, until candy begins to get sugary. Add nuts broken in pieces, spread in a shallow buttered pan, and mark in squares.
Coffee Cocoanut Fudge 4 tablespoons dry coffee 1/2 cup sour cream 1/3 cup water 1/2 cup shredded cocoanut 2 cups sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Few grains soda Put coffee and water in saucepan, bring to the boiling point, then strain through double cheese-cloth. To the strained coffee add sugar, cream, and soda, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238degrees F., or until candy will form a soft ball when tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon, or work with a spatula, until it begins to get sugary. Stir in shredded cocoanut and vanilla, spread in a shallow buttered pan, and mark in squares. Fruit Fudge 3 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon corn syrup 1 cup sugar 2/3 cup milk 1 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup stoned dates Melt the butter in saucepan. Add the sugars, corn syrup, and milk, and stir until boiling point is reached. Boil without stirring to 238 degrees F., or until a soft ball is formed when tried in cold water. Pour on a marble slab, large platter, or agate tray, and leave until cool. With a broad spatula scrape and turn the fudge until it begins to get firm. Add the dates and vanilla, mixing them in by kneading mixture with the hands. Shape in smooth, flat cake, half an inch thick, and cut in squares. Raisins, figs, or cocoanut may be used instead of dates.
Ginger Fudge 1/2 tablespoon butter 2 cups sugar 2/3 cup milk 1/4 cup Canton ginger Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar and milk, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 238 degrees F., or until candy will form a soft ball when tried in cold water. Remove from fire, leave undisturbed until cool, then beat and stir with a spoon, or work with a spatula, until candy begins to get sugary. Add ginger, spread in a shallow buttered pan, and mark in squares. Marshmallow Fudge I Use any recipe for fudge, and just before it becomes firm, put half the mixture in a quarter-inch layer in buttered pan or between candy bars. Lay on it a sheet of marshmallow cut the same size, cover with remaining fudge, and leave until firm. Cut in three-quarter-inch squares. If candy becomes too stiff to make smooth layers, put in saucepan, stir over hot water until softened, and use as directed above.
Marshmallow Fudge II To any recipe for fudge, add three tablespoons marshmallow cream, beat well, and pour into buttered pan or between iron bars. This fudge is always smooth and light in texture.
A single fudge method with seven variations, all built on the same syrup-and-crystallize technique. Get the one hinge right and every version works.
- The hinge: cool before you beat"Leave undisturbed until cool" is the whole recipe. Stirring hot syrup gives coarse, gritty fudge; let it drop to about 110F (barely warm to the back of the hand) before you start working it, and the sugar sets as fine crystals with a smooth bite. Do not scrape the pan sides into the mass either, since dried syrup crystals there will seed the batch.
- CocoanutRead this as unsweetened dried shredded coconut, the usual commercial form in this period. Modern sweetened flaked coconut is wetter and much sweeter; if you use it, the fudge will be softer and cloying. Unsweetened desiccated or flaked coconut is the closer match.
- Thermometer and the cold-water test238F for most of these, 240F for the Coffee Fudge (the Coffee Cocoanut Fudge is 238F). Check your thermometer in boiling water first and adjust for altitude, subtracting roughly 1F per 500 feet above sea level. The soft-ball test is the fallback: a spoonful dripped into very cold water should gather into a ball that flattens between the fingers.
- Coating chocolateFor the cream bars this means a tempering chocolate or a compound coating, not baking chocolate. Real couverture must be tempered or the dipped ends will bloom grey and stay soft; a confectioner's coating wafer sets hard with no tempering and is the simpler route.
- Canton gingerPreserved stem ginger in heavy syrup, sold in jars as stem ginger or ginger in syrup. Drain and chop it fine; crystallized ginger works but is drier and firmer. Powdered ginger is not a substitute here.
- Dry coffee, and the soda"Four tablespoons dry coffee" means ground coffee boiled with the 1/3 cup water and strained, giving a very small quantity of very strong brew (the grounds absorb much of the water). The "few grains soda" is a pinch, no more, to counter the acidity of the sour cream so it does not curdle in the boiling syrup. More than a pinch will taste soapy and darken the candy.
- Bars, slabs and agate trays"Candy bars" are the confectioner's heavy iron or steel bars used to frame a slab; a buttered 8-inch square pan does the same job. An "agate tray" is enamelled steel ware. For the fruit fudge, a marble slab or a large chilled platter cools the mass faster and evenly, which is the point of it.
- Sour creamPeriod sour cream was generally soured cream rather than a standardized tub product, and was likely richer than most sour cream sold today. Full-fat sour cream or creme fraiche both work; low-fat versions will give a thinner, less tender fudge.
- YieldEach of these makes roughly a pound of fudge, about 25 to 30 squares in an 8-inch pan. Mark the squares while the surface is still slightly soft and cut through once it has fully set.
Fudge is one of the few confections with a plausibly American and plausibly documented origin: it appears in the 1880s and 1890s in the letters and clubs of women's colleges in the northeastern United States, with Vassar students commonly credited with spreading it, and the name is generally traced to the older slang sense of "fudge" as a botch or a fake, perhaps a caramel that failed. Its popularity depended on cheap refined beet and cane sugar arriving in ordinary kitchens. The variations here show what a well-stocked 1917 pantry could offer a home candy-maker - desiccated coconut, dates and figs shipped from the Mediterranean and California, Canton ginger from the China trade, corn syrup as a commercial anti-crystallizing agent, and marshmallow cream. Fudge was a party sweet made at home rather than bought.