No. 3656

Tortillons

Place one pound of loaf sugar in a copper sugar basin with sufficient water to melt, then stand it on the fire to cook to three hundred and twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit, being careful to keep the sides clean, and proceed as explained for cooking sugar (No. 171). When ready pour it on a lightly oiled marble, add at once a few drops of peppermint essence and begin to raise up the edges, bringing them toward the center until the sugar can be handled with the hands, then begin to pull till it attains a very glossy, silvery appearance; pull again to a quarter of an inch in diameter string, and cut this quickly into small pieces an inch and a half long, bending each one immediately into the shape of a ring. The pulling, cutting and bending should be performed with despatch, before the sugar has time to cool, when it will fail to bend. The sugar may be colored either light pink or pale green just when flavoring.

← No. 3655 Nougat, Soft and Hard Candies & Bonbons No. 3657 Trocaderos with Raspberry →

For the Modern Kitchen

A pulled-sugar mint, cooked to hard crack, aerated by hand, and twisted into rings while still hot. The whole recipe hinges on speed at the end: once the pulled rope drops below roughly body temperature it snaps instead of bending.

Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined cane sugar broken from a cone, prized for purity. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent; one pound is about 2 1/4 cups.
The copper sugar basinAn unlined copper pan with sloping sides, used because it conducts evenly and lets you swirl rather than stir. A heavy stainless saucepan works; avoid thin pans and anything nonstick, which will not take 325F kindly.
325F means hard crack, at the top of the range325F is past the usual hard-crack range (roughly 300–310F) and at the threshold of caramelization -- use a calibrated candy or digital thermometer and pull the pan the instant you hit the number, or the batch will yellow and taste of caramel rather than mint.
"Keep the sides clean"This is the anti-graining instruction and it matters more than anything else here. Wash stray crystals down from the pan wall with a wet pastry brush during the first minutes of cooking, then stop touching the syrup entirely; a single seed crystal turns the whole batch cloudy and sandy instead of glossy.
Water and acid"Sufficient water to melt" is commonly taken as about 1/2 cup to the pound, and it boils off in any case. Glucose and cream of tartar were both known to nineteenth-century confectioners as insurance against graining, though this recipe calls for neither; either is worth adding if you have had batches turn grainy.
Oiled marbleA marble slab lightly wiped with a neutral oil is still the best surface because it pulls heat out evenly. A heavy sheet pan, oiled, will do. Turning the edges toward the center as described equalizes the temperature so the mass cools as one piece.
Pulling and handling heatThe syrup is close to its 325F cooking temperature when poured and burns instantly. Work with clean cotton or heatproof gloves, and keep the mass warm under a lamp or in a very low oven if you are slow, so the rope stays pliable while you cut and bend.
Peppermint essenceModern peppermint oil and extract are generally much stronger than a nineteenth-century diluted essence. Start with 1/4 teaspoon of extract, or 3 to 4 drops of pure oil, per pound of sugar and adjust from there.
Yield and storagePulled sugar is hygroscopic: it goes sticky within hours in a humid kitchen, so make it on a dry day and store the rings in an airtight tin, layered with parchment.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) includes an extensive confectionery section from his years at Delmonico's, and the pulled-sugar work in it belongs to the French tradition of sucre tiré — sugar cooked hard, aerated by repeated folding and stretching until the trapped air gives it that silvery, satiny sheen, then shaped before it sets. Tortillon is French for a twist or little coil, from tortiller, to twist; it is the same word used for a twisted paper blending stump in drawing. Hand-pulled sugar of this kind is the technique behind later ribbon candy and candy canes, which mechanized the same pulling and cutting. The recipe's insistence on speed and on clean pan sides addresses the two faults it names itself, cooling and graining. Pink and pale green are offered as options in the text.