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Glaces and Pulled Flowers: Glace
Glace Fruits For Glace Fruits, white grapes, strawberries, sections of oranges or mandarins, kumquats, candied cherries and other candied fruits, dates, and figs may be used.
Separate grapes from the clusters, leaving a short piece of stem on each grape.
Strawberries must be carefully dried, and the hulls left on. Oranges and mandarins should have the skin carefully pulled off, not cut off, and should be separated into sections without breaking the membrane. Seeds may be removed through a tiny opening made on the inside edge of each piece of fruit.
Cherries are used whole. Candied pineapple and other candied fruits should be cut in pieces.
Dates and figs may be left whole be cut in pieces.
Dates and figs may be left whole or cut in pieces as desired. They may be stuffed before dipping.
Prepare syrup as for Glace Nuts, and dip fruit, one piece at a time, using a small pair of tweezers or a candy dipper, cover each piece completely with syrup, and then lay on a bright tin pan. Glace Fruits keep but a day, and should be attempted only in cold clear weather.
They are attractive when served in individual paper cases. Marshmallows Glace Brush marshmallows, and dip one at a time in syrup prepared as for Glace Nuts. Glace Marzipan Cut or shape pieces of almond paste, prepared as for Almond Fruits, and dip pieces one at a time in syrup prepared as for Glace Nuts. Jellies Glace Cut in cubes Mint Jelly, Apple Paste colored red and flavored with oil of clove, or Orange Pastilles. Dip in syrup prepared as for Glace Nuts. Taffy Apples 6 small red apples 6 wooden skewers 12 dates 1 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup nut meats 1/2 cup waters Wipe and remove cores from apples, stone dates, chop both dates and nuts, mix, and use to fill cavities in apples. Cook sugar and water until brittle when tried in cold water. Put a skewer in each apple, dip apple in syrup; when covered, remove and cool.
Candy Flowers 2 cups sugar Color paste 1 cup water 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar Put sugar and water in saucepan, add color paste as desired.--a small bit of red on the end of a toothpick will be sufficient to make pink roses,--cover, and boil three minutes. with a clean butter brush dipped in water wash all grains of sugar from sides of saucepan to avoid every tendency of the syrup to become granular. Add cream of tartar, put in thermometer if one is to be used, and boil without stirring to 30 degrees F., or until syrup will instantly crack and become like glass when a little is dropped from tip of spoon into cold water. Another way to tell when syrup is done is to boil it until it begins to change color on one side of saucepan. Pour syrup on to a slightly oiled pan or white agate tray, and place tray on top of saucepan of boiling water, on the stove or in front of a gas oven. As soon as candy can be handled it should be pulled until glossy, keeping it always near the heat of a stove. Return candy to tray, allow it to become softened, detach a small portion, and shape into a closely curled rose petal. Place on a marble slab or tin sheet, away from the heat. Shape a second petal, and fold it around the first petal to form center of rose. shape eight rose petals, adding them to the rose center one at a time as they are made holding them in place at the base with a drop of melted candy. if a petal breaks it may be returned to the tray, softened, and molded again, through the gloss of worked-over candy is not so high. After the desired number of roses are made, the remainder of the candy may be colored dark green, and leaves and calyxes made. These roses are very effective when placed in a bed of white or green spun sugar and used as a garnish for ices. a variety of shapes, colors, and flowers may be made as the artist becomes accustomed to working with the candy, and learns to keep it just warm and soft enough to handle comfortably. Candy Baskets 2 cups sugar Color paste 1 cup water 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar Put sugar and water in saucepan, stir until dissolved, add coloring if desired, cover, and boil three minutes. remove cover, add cream of tartar, and boil to 30 degrees F., or until it cracks in cold water. Reduce heat if necessary to keep syrup from burning. Pour on to a buttered pan, and keep in a warm place either in front of a warm gas-stove oven, or on the back of a range. Take up a small portion, being careful not to burn the fingers, and pull a moment until glossy, make into a flat, even lozenge, pull out evenly until thin as glass, and shape over a small cup or bowl. keep in a cool place until wanted for use. Candy must be kept warm while handling, and work must be done rapidly. if candy gets brittle too soon, melt it by setting saucepan over the fire on an asbestos mat, and use again. shape handles of strips of pulled candy, and fasten to basket with a drop of melted candy. fill candy cups with sherbet or bonbons, and decorate with a spray of candy flowers.
Crystal Cups 2 pounds sugar 2 cups boiling water 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar Put ingredients in a smooth saucepan. bring to the boiling point and let boil without stirring until syrup reaches a temperature of 290 degrees F., or until candy cracks when tried in cold water. wash off sugar which adheres to sides of saucepan with a butter brush dipped in cold water. Set saucepan in larger saucepan containing cold water to instantly stop cooking; then set in a saucepan of boiling water, that syrup may not cool too rapidly. brush over a timbale iron with olive oil and wipe with soft paper. Dip into syrup, taking care that syrup covers iron to only two thirds its depth. Remove from syrup, invert iron, and swing in front of an open window. as soon as cup is formed, take from iron. cool iron and repeat.
It is well to have two irons, so that one may cool while the other is being used. If a color scheme is to be carried out, the syrup may be colored as desired before boiling.
Arrange cups on a bed of spun sugar, and fill with candies. Spun Sugar 2 cups sugar 1 cup water 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar Color paste Put sugar, water, and cream of tartar in sauce-pan, add color paste if desired, and boil without stirring to 310 degree F., or until syrup spins a very long thread. Place saucepan immediately into a dish of cold water to stop the boiling, and then set it in hot water. Have ready two parallel, horizontal bars about three feet apart, with paper beneath to protect floor from sugar. Dip sugar spinner, or a bunch of wires in syrup, and wave swiftly back and forth between the bars. Syrup will spin long threads; these should be gathered up from time to time and placed on a cool platter. If syrup gets sugary, place it for a moment on the fire to melt. Spun sugar is used as a garnish around molds of ice cream or glace fruits and nuts. Spun sugar is easily made in cool weather, but softens very quickly in hot weather. It keeps best if put in a tightly covered box or pail in the refrigerator.
This is a cluster of pulled- and spun-sugar techniques rather than a single recipe, and nearly all of it hangs on one number: the temperature to which the syrup is boiled. Get that right and the rest is patience.
- The "30 degrees F." is a misprintCandy Flowers and Candy Baskets both say to boil to 30 degrees F., which is impossible. The intended figure is 300 degrees F. — hard crack — confirmed by the parallel instruction to boil "until it cracks in cold water" and by the 290 F and 310 F given for Crystal Cups and Spun Sugar.
- The syrup "as for Glace Nuts"Four of these recipes (Glace Fruits, Marshmallows Glace, Glace Marzipan, Jellies Glace) depend on a syrup given elsewhere in the book. You need that page before you start.
- Weather is the hinge, not skillThe instruction to work only "in cold clear weather" is literal. Hard-crack sugar is hygroscopic; on a damp day glace fruit turns sticky quickly and spun sugar collapses. Run the air conditioning or the dehumidifier, and do not attempt this in humid weather.
- Cream of tartar's jobIt inverts part of the sucrose so the syrup stays clear and pliable instead of crystallising. Do not increase it — too much and pulled sugar never firms up. Washing the pan sides with a wet brush serves the same anti-crystallisation purpose.
- Timbale iron and asbestos matA timbale iron is a shaped metal form on a long handle; small metal ladle backs or the bowls of stainless measuring spoons work for Crystal Cups. Replace the asbestos mat with a flame tamer or the lowest setting on an induction hob.
- Vessels and surfacesA "bright tin pan" or "white agate tray" means a light-coloured metal or enamelled surface, lightly oiled. Silicone mats are better on all counts. A marble slab is genuinely useful for setting petals because it pulls heat out fast.
- Color pasteStill sold as gel or paste food colour. These recipes add it with the sugar and water at the start, before boiling; use paste rather than liquid so you are not adding extra water to the syrup.
- Taffy Apples"1/2 cup waters" is a typo for water. One cup brown sugar with half a cup of water boiled to the brittle stage gives only thin, patchy coverage on six apples; brown sugar also darkens and can catch at high heat, so watch it closely. Yield is six.
- Glacé fruit is a same-day propositionThe note that it keeps but a day is accurate. Fresh grapes and strawberries weep moisture through the sugar shell; dry them thoroughly, dip, and serve within a few hours in paper cases.
- Burn riskSugar at 300 F is far hotter than boiling water and sticks to skin. Pulling by hand, as instructed, is done only once the mass has cooled to the point where it is merely uncomfortable. Keep a bowl of cold water at the bench.
Pulled and spun sugar came to American home cooking by way of professional French confectionery, where sucre tiré and sucre filé were the showpiece skills of the pastry kitchen — the ribbons, baskets and flowers that crowned a set-piece dessert on a nineteenth-century banquet table. The presence of these techniques in an early twentieth-century American candy book reflects the cooking-school movement's confidence that a determined amateur with a thermometer could do what had previously required an apprenticeship: the recipe even concedes the point, telling the reader to expect improvement "as the artist becomes accustomed to working with the candy." The reliance on a thermometer is itself a period marker. Older confectionery manuals described stages only by feel — the cold-water crack test given here as an alternative — and the arrival of cheap dairy and candy thermometers in domestic kitchens is often credited with making hard-crack sugar work easier to teach, though the cold-water test remained a working alternative and confectioners had taught these stages long before. The warnings about damp weather, and the advice to store spun sugar in the refrigerator, are the honest residue of a kitchen without climate control, where a humid afternoon simply ended the project.