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Flavored Sugar
Rub the required quantity of powdered sugar through a fine sieve on a sheet of paper, turn it into a round-bottomed pan, set it on the stove to warm, and whisk in any kind of flavoring essence desired.
A finishing sugar rather than a dish, and the whole trick is heat control: the warmth is only there to drive off the alcohol in the essence so the sugar dries loose instead of clumping.
- Keep it barely warm"Set it on the stove" means the coolest spot on the range, not a working burner. Sugar begins to clump and then colour with real heat; you want it no warmer than the palm of your hand, stirring until it feels dry again.
- "Powdered sugar" is not confectioners' sugarIn 1896 powdered sugar meant loaf sugar crushed and sifted fine — closest today to superfine or caster sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar carries cornstarch and will turn pasty when moistened with essence.
- Round-bottomed panA metal mixing bowl set over the lowest heat, or over a pan of hot water off the heat, does the same job. The curved bottom simply lets a whisk reach every grain.
- How much essenceThe original gives none. Start with 1/4 teaspoon of a strong extract per cup of sugar, whisk, let it dry, and taste before adding more; alcohol-based extracts carry more scent than the drop suggests.
- Zest instead of essenceThe same method works with the grated zest of a lemon or orange rubbed into the sugar. Skip the stove entirely and spread it on paper to dry for an hour or two, since citrus oil adds moisture that must go somewhere.
- StorageCool it completely before it goes into a jar; residual warmth condenses inside the lid and cements the sugar. Sealed and cool it holds its scent for some months, fading gradually rather than all at once.
- Where it is usedThis is the sugar for dusting a soufflé or crêpes, sweetening whipped cream, rimming a glass, or strewing over berries — anywhere sugar is added at the end and its flavour is not cooked away.
Flavored sugars belong to the age when a hotel kitchen made its own aromatics rather than buying them: vanilla sugar, rose sugar and lemon sugar were the sort of preparations a pastry station was expected to produce for itself. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's ma u00eetre d'h u00f4tel, published his book in 1896, and in it short procedural memoranda like this sit alongside full recipes — the reader is assumed to know what to do with a scented sugar once it exists. The reliance on "any kind of flavoring essence desired" reflects a real change in the late nineteenth century, when commercially bottled extracts became widely available — though they were often variable and adulterated — so that a cook no longer had to macerate a vanilla bean or pound rose petals to perfume a pound of sugar.