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Plain Taffy (Pulled)
1 pint Karo, Blue Label 1 cup brown or granulated sugar 1 tablespoon vinegar 1/2 tablespoon Mazola Combine the ingredients in the order given and boil until a little when tried in cold water forms a fairly firm ball, 252 degrees F. Pour onto a platter lightly oiled with Mazola and when cool enough to handle, pull until light colored. A few drops of flavoring may be worked in while it is being pulled. Peppermint, vanilla and lemon are all good. Snip into inch lengths with the scissors and wrap in paraffine paper.
A straightforward pulled sugar candy, and one of the easier old taffy formulas because the corn syrup does the work of preventing crystallization. The only real variable is the finish temperature.
- Karo Blue LabelKaro was sold in several grades; Blue Label was a golden syrup, darker and more strongly flavored than Crystal White but lighter than the dark Red Label. Ordinary light corn syrup is the closest modern substitute. One pint is 2 cups, roughly 1 lb 6-7 oz by weight.
- MazolaCorn oil, from the same company that made Karo. Any neutral oil serves for greasing the platter and your hands.
- Temperature is the hinge252°F sits at the top of the firm-ball range. Use a calibrated thermometer and pull the pan off the heat when it arrives; cooked much hotter the taffy grows hard and stiff to pull, much cooler and it stays sticky and will not hold a twist. The cold-water test in the original is a backup, not a substitute.
- Cook it low in the panUse a heavy saucepan at least three times the volume of the syrup. Sugar syrups climb sharply near the end, and this mixture holds enough water to foam.
- Handling the hot massLet it cool on the platter until it can be lifted at the edges without running, then fold the edges in. Sugar at this stage will still burn badly; oiled hands help, and food-safe gloves help more. Pull with steady long strokes until the candy turns opaque and pale, roughly 10 to 15 minutes.
- FlavoringAdd extracts only once pulling has begun and the mass has dropped below scalding heat; alcohol-based flavorings flash off if worked into candy straight from the pan. A few drops is genuinely enough for this quantity of peppermint oil.
- WeatherPulled taffy fails on a humid day. The sugar draws moisture from the air and the pieces weep and fuse in the wrapper.
- Wrapping and yieldWrapping -- "Paraffine paper" is waxed paper; cut it into small rectangles and twist the ends. The pieces keep a week or two in an airtight tin.
This recipe most likely comes from one of the corporate cookbooks that Corn Products Refining Company circulated in the early twentieth century, and the tell is in the ingredient list: Karo syrup and Mazola oil, both house brands, named by label color as if no substitute existed. Karo was introduced in the early 1900s and Mazola shortly after, and free or near-free recipe booklets were the main way both were pushed into American kitchens. Pulled taffy long predates them " + "— taffy pulls were a standard piece of nineteenth-century parlor entertainment, the sort of party where the cooling candy was the activity rather than the refreshment — but glucose syrup made the chemistry forgiving in a way that all-sugar recipes were not, since it interferes with crystal formation and lets an inexperienced cook pull a smooth candy instead of a grainy one. The point is less about the taffy than about the book's ambitions: candy-making at home was being presented as an ordinary domestic skill, provided you bought the right two cans.