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Salt Water Taffy
1 cup Karo, Red Label 3/4 cup water 2 cups granulated sugar 1 tablespoon Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 1/2 tablespoon Mazola 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon desired flavoring, preferably vanilla Combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt and Mazola. Add the Karo and water and stir until the mixture boils rapidly. Boil to 252 degrees F. or until a little when tried in cold water forms a fairly hard ball. Flavor, pour onto a large platter lightly oiled with Mazola and when cool enough to handle, oiling the hands with a little Mazola, pull into a rope and cut in inch lengths.
A straightforward boiled-sugar taffy from a Corn Products Refining Company booklet, which is why every branded ingredient in it belongs to the same firm. The whole recipe hinges on one number: 252F.
- Temperature is the recipe252F sits just into hard-ball, which is what the recipe's own 'fairly hard ball' cold-water test describes. A few degrees under and the taffy will sag and stick; a few over and it turns brittle and will not pull. Use a calibrated thermometer, checked in boiling water beforehand, and take the reading with the bulb submerged but off the pan bottom.
- Karo Red LabelKaro was sold in colour-coded labels: Blue was the light, near-neutral syrup and Red a darker, more strongly flavoured one. Light corn syrup gives a pale, clean-tasting taffy; today's dark corn syrup, which carries refiners' syrup, will give a browner, molasses-edged sweet closer to the original Red Label.
- Mazola and the other brandsMazola is corn oil, and any neutral oil works for greasing the platter and hands. Argo and Kingsford's are plain cornstarch. The half tablespoon of oil in the syrup itself is not decoration; a little fat in the batch lubricates the candy and makes it easier to pull and less sticky to handle.
- Cooling surfaceA large platter is what the recipe assumes. A lightly oiled rimmed sheet pan or, better, an oiled marble slab cools the batch faster and more evenly, which matters because the edges firm long before the centre. Fold the cooler edges inward with an oiled scraper as it sets.
- PullingStart when the mass is warm but bearable, roughly 120F. Pull, fold and re-pull for ten to fifteen minutes until the candy turns from glossy amber to opaque, satiny and pale, and stiffens against the hands. That colour change is aeration and it is what makes taffy taffy.
- HumidityBoiled sugar work fails on damp days. Cooked sugar draws moisture from the air and a humid kitchen produces taffy that weeps and sticks within hours regardless of how accurately it was boiled.
- Cutting and wrappingCut the inch lengths with oiled scissors while the rope is still slightly warm. Wrap each piece in waxed paper promptly; unwrapped pieces left together in a tin will tend to fuse back into a mass.
- YieldTwo cups of sugar plus a cup of syrup gives roughly a pound and a half of finished candy, or several dozen inch-long pieces.
- Handling hot syrupSugar at 252F is far hotter than boiling water and clings to skin. Pour away from yourself and let the sheet cool properly before touching it.
There is no salt water in salt water taffy beyond the three-quarter teaspoon that seasons any confection. The name is generally traced to the Atlantic City boardwalk in the 1880s, and the story usually told, that a storm tide flooded a candy stand and the owner sold his soaked stock as "salt water taffy", is folklore rather than documented fact; the term was firmly attached to the New Jersey shore trade by the 1890s and became a souvenir sweet sold by the box. This version appears in a promotional cookbook from the Corn Products Refining Company, whose Karo, Argo, Kingsford's and Mazola brands account for three of the seven ingredients. Corn syrup was the point of such booklets: it is a glucose syrup rather than an invert sugar, and it interferes with crystal formation, which is precisely what a pulled candy needs. Manufacturers of this period promoted such recipes to show home cooks that a boardwalk confection was within reach of an ordinary kitchen.