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Creamed Karo Balls
Prepare Creamed Karo and add three-fourths the quantity of desiccated cocoanut, chopped nut meats or a mixture of cocoanut, nut meats and chopped raisins. Form into balls the size of marbles, roll in chopped, desiccated cocoanut or nuts, let stand over night, then roll in paraffine paper.
A manufacturer's fondant candy, written on the assumption that you have already made the "Creamed Karo" base given elsewhere in the book. Everything here depends on that base being properly cooked and worked.
- Creamed KaroThe book gives this base elsewhere; from the name it is a fondant of corn syrup and sugar, cooked and then worked until it turns white and opaque. This page gives no temperature or method, so any figure quoted for it is guesswork. Note that a fondant boiled too high will be grainy and hard.
- "Three-fourths the quantity"Three-fourths of however much Creamed Karo you have made. The recipe does not say whether that is by volume or by weight, and since the base is not on this page no fixed cup measure follows from it.
- Desiccated cocoanutThe period product is unsweetened, finely shredded and quite dry. Modern sweetened flaked coconut is moister and coarser; it will slacken the fondant and make the balls sticky. Use unsweetened desiccated coconut, and pulse it briefly if the shreds are long.
- Nut meatsSimply shelled nuts. Walnuts, pecans and almonds all suit. Toast and cool them first for flavour, and chop fine so the balls hold together.
- Size of marblesRoughly 1/2 to 3/4 inch. The yield depends on the size of the Creamed Karo batch, which this page does not give.
- Standing overnightStanding overnight lets the surface firm before wrapping. Leave the balls uncovered on waxed paper at cool room temperature rather than in the refrigerator, where they will sweat.
- Paraffine paperWaxed paper. Nothing is being dipped in melted paraffin here — the balls are simply wrapped for storage. Twist the ends like a caramel wrapper and keep them in a tin.
Karo corn syrup arrived on American grocery shelves in the first years of the twentieth century, and like most branded staples of the era it travelled with a stream of small promotional cookbooks explaining what to do with it. Corn syrup is chemically well suited to candy: the glucose interferes with sucrose crystallisation, so a fondant made with it stays smoother and more forgiving than one made from sugar alone — which is why the manufacturer's booklets leaned so heavily on confectionery. The habit of home candy-making, and of corn syrup as a sugar-stretcher, grew stronger still during the First World War, when household sugar was constrained first by voluntary pledges and later by Food Administration controls and certificates, and cooks were urged toward syrups and molasses. The fondant ball rolled in coconut belongs to that broad tradition of home confectionery: cheap, keepable, and made in quantity for holidays.