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Chestnut Glaces with Sugar
Into a stewpan partly filled with water put one-half pound of crushed loaf-sugar, not having more water than the sugar will absorb, and boil it to the crack. Then boil the requisite quantity of chestnuts until soft, and peel them, taking care not to break them. Take them on the point of an iron skewer, one at a time; dip them first into the syrup and then, quickly, into cold water. As the chestnuts are done, slip them off the skewer onto a wire sieve, and dry them in a warm place.
A candy-shop technique written for cooks who could read a sugar stage by eye. The whole recipe hangs on getting the syrup to the crack stage and keeping it there while you work.
- "Boil it to the crack"The crack stage is generally reckoned at roughly 300-310F on a candy thermometer, though older texts place it variously. Much below that the coating stays tacky and will weep; much above it the sugar begins to color and turn bitter.
- Loaf-sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a solid cone and broken up for use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct equivalent — half a pound is a generous cup.
- Water quantity"Not having more water than the sugar will absorb" means barely enough to wet it, roughly a quarter cup to the half pound. Excess water lengthens the boil, and the recipe is explicit about avoiding it.
- Keeping the syrup workableAt hard crack the syrup stiffens fast off the heat, so work quickly and over the lowest possible flame, and do not stir once it boils or it may grain.
- The chestnutsScore and boil them, then peel off both the shell and the inner brown skin while still hot; cold chestnuts will not give the skin up. Whole peeled chestnuts, vacuum-packed or frozen, are a fair substitute and save the breakage the recipe warns about.
- The cold-water dipThis is the hinge. The instant in cold water sets the sugar to a clear brittle shell; leave it in longer and the water starts dissolving the coating you just applied.
- Drying"A warm place" means somewhere dry and gently warm. Damp air softens the glaze within hours, so serve them the day they are made.
Sugar-glazed chestnuts belong to the French confectioner's repertoire that Oscar Tschirky's Waldorf kitchen drew on; they are a cousin of the marrons glacés of Lyon and Turin, though the true marron is candied slowly in successive syrups over days rather than dipped once in hard-crack sugar. What is described here is closer to a spun-sugar or caramel dip. Chestnuts were a far more ordinary autumn commodity in 1896 New York than they are now — street vendors roasted and sold them, and the blight that erased the American chestnut from eastern forests was not identified until 1904. That a hotel could call for "the requisite quantity" without further comment says something about how cheap and available they were.