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Vanilla Caramels
Mix well together two pounds of the best white sugar, one ounce of gelatine dissolved in two-thirds a breakfast cupful of cold water, one-half ounce of pure paraffin wax, one-half pint of cream, and one pound of glucose (though, if the caramels are made in the summer time, the glucose may be reduced to eleven ounces). Put this mixture over the fire, and stir it constantly until, when a little is dried in cold water, it forms a ball if rolled through the fingers, then stir in a flavoring of vanilla, remove it from the fire, pour into well-buttered tins, let cool, and cut it into three-fourth inch squares. Wrap them separately in oiled paper, and keep them in a cool place until wanted.
A cream caramel set with gelatine rather than long cooking, which makes it chewy and pale rather than dark and buttery. The candy thermometer does most of the work the original leaves to your fingers.
- The hinge: soft-ball stageThe cold-water test described here " a ball that holds its shape when rolled between the fingers " is soft-ball, 235-240F (113-116C). Below that the caramels will not set enough to cut; much above it they turn hard and glassy on cooling.
- Glucose is corn syrupThe "one pound of glucose" is confectioner's glucose syrup, sold today as glucose syrup or light corn syrup. It is an interfering sugar that keeps the sucrose from crystallising. The summer reduction to eleven ounces was probably meant to allow for humidity in an unairconditioned kitchen.
- Paraffin waxFood-grade paraffin turns up in American candy making as a softener and gloss agent, though how usual it was in caramels is unclear. Half an ounce in this batch is a small proportion, but it contributes nothing to flavour and the caramels work without it -- simply leave it out. Never substitute candle wax or lamp paraffin.
- Gelatine and the breakfast cupfulOne ounce is about four quarter-ounce envelopes of powdered gelatine. A breakfast cup ran 8 to 10 fluid ounces, so two-thirds of one is roughly 5 to 7 fl oz of cold water " bloom the gelatine in it for five minutes before it goes into the pan.
- CreamHalf a pint means 8 fl oz of heavy cream. Modern ultra-pasteurised cream behaves the same here, but scald it separately if you want to shorten time on the fire and reduce the risk of scorching.
- Stir constantly, and watch the bottomSugar, cream and gelatine together catch quickly. Use a heavy-bottomed pan of at least three quarts " the mixture climbs " and a silicone spatula that reaches the corners.
- Pans and cuttingButter a quarter-sheet pan or two 8-inch square tins and spread to a depth of roughly half an inch. Cool completely at room temperature before cutting, and oil the knife.
- WrappingOiled paper is now waxed paper or cellophane candy wrappers. The wrapping is not decorative -- caramels of this kind weep and stick to each other if left bare, and they keep best cool and dry rather than refrigerated.
Oscar Tschirky's book records the Waldorf's kitchens at the turn of the century, when caramels were a relatively young American commercial candy rather than an old European one. Cheap glucose syrup, refined from corn on an industrial scale in the later nineteenth century, is what made a chewy, non-crystalline candy like this reliable outside a professional confectionery; the Lancaster, Pennsylvania caramel trade of that period, Milton Hershey's first success, was built on the same material. The gelatine here looks like a shortcut: instead of cooking cream and sugar long and hot enough to set on their own, the confectioner gets a firm, sliceable chew at soft-ball stage, and the candy stays pale and vanilla-forward rather than tasting of browned milk. The seasonal note about reducing the glucose in summer suggests these sweets were made in a kitchen with no humidity control, where a July batch could go sticky on a recipe that behaved perfectly in January.