Home › Unusual Recipes › Penuche
Penuche
2 cups brown sugar 1/2 cup Karo, Blue Label 1/2 cup rich milk 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 tablespoon butter 1/3 teaspoon vanilla Combine the Karo, butter, sugar, milk and salt and boil until a little when tried in cold water forms a soft ball, 238 degrees F. little when tried in cold water forms a soft ball, 238 degrees F. Cool till tepid, add the vanilla, beat until creamy and pour one-half inch deep into a medium-sized pan lightly oiled. When almost cool, cut into squares.
A plain brown-sugar fudge that depends almost entirely on temperature and on when you start beating. The ingredient list is short enough that the only real variables are the thermometer and your patience.
- Karo, Blue LabelBlue Label was one of Karo's several labelled grades; period sources are inconsistent about exactly how light or dark each was, so treat the identification as uncertain. Any light corn syrup works here; it is there as an interfering agent to keep the sucrose from forming coarse crystals.
- Rich milkMilk in this period was unhomogenised and top-of-the-bottle cream was easy to come by. Use half-and-half, or whole milk with a spoonful of cream, for the texture the writer expected.
- 238F is the whole recipeSoft-ball stage is a narrow window. Below about 234F the penuche will not set; much past 240F it turns hard and dry. Use a calibrated candy thermometer and check it in boiling water first, subtracting for altitude if you are much above sea level.
- Do not beat while hot"Cool till tepid" means roughly 110F, and it matters more than anything else here. Beating a hot syrup grows large crystals and gives a grainy candy; beating a cooled one gives the fine grain that makes penuche smooth.
- Leave it alone while it coolsNo stirring, no scraping the pan sides once it is off the heat, and add the vanilla only at the end. Sugar crystals dragged in from the rim will seed the whole batch.
- Beat until it dullsThe signal is a change in appearance and resistance: the glossy syrup goes matte and thick and stops flowing freely. Pour immediately at that point, as it will seize in the bowl within a minute or two.
- Pan size and yieldA "medium-sized pan" filled half an inch deep is about an 8-inch square tin. Expect roughly a pound of candy, or about 25 to 36 squares depending on how you cut it.
- Butter quantityHalf a tablespoon is not a misprint; this is a lean fudge by modern standards. An extra tablespoon gives a softer, richer result, though it will soften the finished texture somewhat.
Penuche is brown-sugar fudge, and the name is generally traced to the Mexican Spanish panocha or panela, terms for unrefined loaf sugar; it is particularly associated with New England, where it is still sometimes spelled penoche or panocha. Its flavour comes from the molasses left in brown sugar rather than from chocolate, which is why it reads as a caramel or butterscotch cousin rather than as fudge proper. The specific call for "Karo, Blue Label" places this in the era of manufacturer-sponsored cookery writing: corn syrup was promoted heavily to American home cooks from the early 1900s onward, and candy recipes were a natural vehicle, since the syrup does help prevent graininess. The stated 238F may be a period marker, from the decades when home candy thermometers were becoming affordable and books could give a number alongside the older cold-water test.