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Pulled Candies: Taffy
Taffy 1 cup sugar 2/3 cup corn syrup 1 1/2 tablespoons butter 1/3 cup water Melt butter in saucepan, add sugar, corn syrup, and water, stir until sugar is dissolved, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 260 degrees F., or until it forms a hard ball when tried in cold water. Pour on a marble slab or white agate tray which has been slightly moistened by being wiped over with a piece of damp cheesecloth. Fold edges over into the center before they have time to get hard; by doing this the candy will be kept soft, but in doing it the candy must be disturbed as little as possible, as any tendency toward stirring it may cause it to sugar, and then it cannot be pulled. As soon as candy is cool enough to handle, knead it until firm, add flavor, then pull it over a hook until it is white. Cut with scissors into bars, and wrap in waxed paper.
Salt Water Taffy 1 1/2 cups brown sugar 1/2 cup corn syrup 3 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup water 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1/2 tablespoon glycerine 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla Put brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, and water in saucepan or iron kettle, and boil, stirring occasionally, to 256 degrees F., or until it forms a hard ball when tried in cold water. Add salt and glycerine, pour on greased marble slab or agate tray, and when cool enough to handle, pull until light colored. Add vanilla while pulling. Pull out in round sticks the size of kisses, cut in small pieces with scissors, and wrap in waxed paper. Atlantic City Salt Water Taffy 1 cup sugar 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch 2/3 cup corn syrup 1 tablespoon butter 1/2 cup water 1/2 teaspoon salt Flavoring Mix sugar and cornstarch, put in saucepan, add corn syrup, butter, and water. Stir until boiling point is reached, and boil to 256 degrees F., or until it forms a firm ball when tried in cold water. Add salt, pour on greased slab or agate tray, and when cool enough to handle, pull until light colored. Divide in separate portions, and color and flavor each portion as desired, while it is being pulled. Lemon, orange, peppermint, lime, strawberry, or pineapple flavors may be used, and pink, green, yellow, or orange color paste. To make red striped kisses have one portion of candy colored bright red and kept warm near the oven. Lay the large piece of pulled taffy on the slab; on the upper side lay two or three parallel strips of red taffy; turn the piece over and lay two or three red strips on that side. Pull out until one and one half inches wide and three fourths inch thick. Cut in pieces with scissors, and wrap in wax paper.
Vinegar Candy 2 tablespoons butter 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup vinegar Put butter in iron kettle or saucepan; when melted, add sugar and vinegar. Stir until sugar is dissolved, wash down crystals from sides of saucepan with butter brush dipped in cold water; boil to 256 degrees F., or until mixture will become brittle when tried in cold water. Turn on buttered platter or marble slab. When cool, pull until very white, and cut in small pieces with scissors or a sharp knife.
After Dinner Mints 2 cups sugar 2/3 cup boiling water 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar 1 teaspoon vinegar Few drops oil of peppermint Put sugar, water, cream of tartar, and vinegar in a saucepan, and mix ingredients thoroughly. Bring to the boiling point, and boil without stirring to 265 degrees F., or until mixture will become brittle when tried in cold water. Pour on an oiled marble slab, or large white agate tray, and leave undisturbed until cool enough to handle easily. Lift candy, avoiding any movement that is like a stirring motion, as stirring may cause candy to sugar, and pull, doubling candy over evenly and pulling out as long as possible, keeping the grain all one way. Add flavoring during the pulling. When candy is too stiff to pull longer, stretch out into a long rope, half an inch in diameter, and cut with scissors into small pieces. Put immediately into a bowl of powdered sugar, stir until well coated, and when dry put into a glass jar, cover, and let stand several days in a warm place, when candies should become tender and sugary.
Candy may be divided into several portions, and one portion colored pink and flavored with wintergreen; another portion may be colored green and flavored with almond and vanilla; another portion may be colored yellow and flavored with lemon or orange.
Peppermint Stick Candy 2 cups sugar 1/4 cup corn syrup 1/2 cup water Put sugar, corn syrup, and water in saucepan, stir until sugar is dissolved, bring to boiling point, and boil without stirring to 310 degrees F., or until it begins to discolor on edge of saucepan. Pour out on oiled marble slab or platter, cut off a small portion, color red, and keep in a warm place. Pull remaining candy as soon as it can be handled, flavoring with a few drops of oil of peppermint. Pull out into a long strip, and flatten it. Pull the red piece out to the same length, and lay on top. Pull quickly, holding over the stove, or in front of oven, into thin strips, and twist so the strip will be spiral. Keep rolling and twisting until cold, then cut with scissors, or break in short lengths.
A run of pulled-sugar recipes from the era when candy making was a parlor activity and every cook owned a marble slab. The chemistry is unchanged; only the equipment and a few ingredient names need translating.
- Work the syrup as little as possibleThe hinge of every recipe here is avoiding crystallization. Once the sugar has dissolved and the syrup has come to a boil, stop stirring, wash the pan sides down with a wet brush, and lift rather than stir the cooling mass on the slab. A single stray crystal turns the whole batch grainy and unpullable.
- Trust the thermometer, not the proseThe stated temperatures are broadly reliable; the accompanying descriptions are not always consistent. 256F falls in the hard-ball range, not the brittle or crack stage, despite what the vinegar candy text says, and the mints at 265F are likewise still a ball stage rather than brittle. Calibrate a digital thermometer in boiling water first and subtract or add the difference, and note that above about 1,000 feet you need to drop each target by roughly 2F per 1,000 feet.
- Agate trayWhite agate ware is speckled enamel-coated steel, common household equipment in 1900. A large rimmed sheet pan works, though marble or a granite countertop cools the syrup faster and more evenly. Oil or butter it well; the taffy recipe's damp-cheesecloth trick appears intended to keep the surface from sticking without adding fat.
- GlycerineFood-grade vegetable glycerin, sold with baking supplies or at pharmacies. In the salt water taffy it keeps the finished candy soft and chewy over several days. It can be left out at the cost of a firmer, shorter-keeping candy.
- Oil of peppermintPeppermint oil, not peppermint extract; the oil is several times stronger. A few drops means a few drops. Add flavorings after the syrup has cooled enough to handle, or the volatiles boil off.
- Pulling and the hookWall-mounted candy hooks are no longer standard equipment. Butter your hands well, wear a second pair of hands if you have them, and pull by hand until the candy turns opaque and pale, which is the aeration doing its work. Peppermint stick candy at 310F is hard-crack and dangerously hot; let it slump and cool at the edges before touching it, and expect a short working window.
- HumidityPulled candy pulls moisture from the air and goes sticky. Choose a dry day, and wrap the cut pieces in waxed paper promptly as directed rather than leaving them loose in a bowl.
- The mints need to ripenAfter-dinner mints are meant to be hard when cut and creamy days later. The several days in a warm covered jar lets the invert sugar draw moisture into the candy so it turns short and fondant-like. Do not skip it, and do not refrigerate.
- YieldNone is given. The taffy on one cup of sugar makes roughly a pound of candy; the two-cup batches roughly double that.
Salt water taffy is a boardwalk product of Atlantic City, and its name is generally traced to the 1880s, when the confection was already being sold along the New Jersey shore. The often-repeated story that a storm tide flooded a candy stand and the owner began calling his soaked stock salt water taffy is traditional rather than documented; what is certain is that by the time this book was printed the name had become a national shorthand for pulled taffy, which is why the author gives both a generic version and an Atlantic City one. Pulling itself is far older than the seaside trade: incorporating air into a supersaturated sugar syrup by stretching and folding turns it from clear amber to opaque white and from brittle to chewy, and the taffy pull was a standard American social evening in the nineteenth century, cheap entertainment requiring nothing but sugar, a kettle, and buttered hands.