Candy Is Fun

Rom the first lollipop at the first children's party to the gold-wrapped cherry cordial at a golden anniversary all of the festive occasions of a lifetime are associated with candy. There is no holiday that is not enhanced by candy and if it isn't a holiday, candy will make it one.

There are the candies that set off every holiday throughout the year: candied popcorn stars and marzipan strawberries at Christmas time, pink and red hearts on Valentine's Day, chocolate-covered eggs at Easter time, marshmallows to roast at the Fourth of July picnic and candied fruits and nuts on Thanksgiving Day.

Is there anything as delicious, as tempting or as satisfying as a piece of candy? There is the penny candy of our extreme youth — "I'll take one of these and two of those and one of these" — choosing after solemn deliberation; the excitement over the candy apples on a stick when autumn comes; the wonderful if grimy mess of a childhood taffy pull; the first box of candy presented awkwardly by a speechless, gan­gling beau.

Candy tastes good and is good. And it tastes much better and is much better if you make it yourself. Whatever your favorite candy, whether butter crunch or fudge, nougat or molasses taffy, peanut brittle or chocolate mint patties, you can make it better than the best candy you ever bought. You can even learn to make fancy-dipped chocolates and bonbons that look as tempting as the ones you gazed at longingly as a child with your nose pressed against the con­fectioner's plate-glass window. And they'll live up to their looks, if you make them yourself.

If you feel the candy you've been eating isn't as good as it used to be, don't ascribe it to the tricks that memories of the good old days play on you. You've just not been eating the right candy. Home­made candy is better than ever. Try it and see.

As youngsters at home my sister and I made fudge and penuche, fondant and divinity, taffy to pull and popcorn balls, and occasionally even dipped dates and nuts in chocolate. We tried to make marshmal-lows but there was something wrong with our recipes or our equipment and they always turned out with a layer of gelatin on the bottom. We experimented witb caramels but had not the patience to cook them as long as was needed in the recipes that we found. And we never, never could make butter crunch with­out having it separate.

We continued to make a few of our old favorites, stirring up fudge once in a while in the middle of the night when a gnawing sweet tooth was unable to discover a single piece of candy around the house to appease it. But we felt for many years that most candy was something to be made by the experts — which we weren't.

Well, we know differently now and we think that what we have learned will make it possible for you, too, to make candy as good as any of the experts — and without tears.

We found, for instance, that butter crunch won't separate if it's cooked in a heavy skillet instead of a saucepan. That caramels can be made by a new method which cuts the cooking time as much as 2l/z hours. That even chocolate dipping, admittedly the fussiest of candymaking processes, is easy to conquer when you recognize that chocolate demands certain conditions and won't behave, otherwise. Sugar itself, though not as cranky as chocolate, follows the rules of its own chemistry and does not take kindly to attempts to change those rules.

The special value of these candy recipes is that, whether they're old standard recipes or new ones we created, they are fresh enough to us so that we take nothing for granted — so often the case when you've made a recipe for years on end and forgotten the difficulties you encountered the first time you made it.

On the other hand, in talking to candy enthusiasts who were always ready to test our samples we dis­covered that the candy considered best by the ex­perts is not always so regarded by their public. Al­most everyone has tried his hand at making chocolate fudge, and nothing in the world has ever tasted so good as that fudge you whipped up just because you wanted something sweet and lovely. Purists say that fudge of yours was probably pretty poor stuff and all modern cookbooks have recipes that correct its bad features. By the new methods you can produce a delicious soft creamy fudge, of the consistency of fondant but not at all like the hard and grainy stuff you made in mother's kitchen or over the spirit lamp at college. Yet, it's not the expert's creamy fudge that many of us want at all, but the kind of fudge that tastes like home and childhood — and since many have now lost the knack of making "bad" fudge we include in this book directions for making both creamy fudge and old-fashioned "amateur" fudge.

To make candy is to assist at a miracle. Starting with sugar and water you can make fondant, white taffy, lollipops and barley sugar merely by boiling the syrup to higher and higher temperatures and add­ing flavoring.

The change that takes place with each degree is the miracle.

If you add milk, or butter, or cream, or chocolate you widen the range to include fudge and caramels, butterscotch and toffee; add an egg white and you get nougat or divinity; some gelatin and you have marshmallows or jellies.

Of course that's not the whole story. It's what you do to the sugar syrup at every stage, as well as tem­perature variations, that decides the texture or qual­ity of your candy.

If you wanted to eat plain sugar, you wouldn't bother to make candy. One of your chief concerns will be to see that your candy doesn't turn back into sugar. That's why it is important to add to sugar syrups an ingredient that slows down crystallization — such as corn syrup, cream of tartar, or an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar. That's also why most of the candies that have few ingredients besides sugar and water are not stirred after reaching the boiling point — because it has been discovered that stirring can start off a chain reaction and cause your candy to crystallize.

When you're making this type of candy, especially fondant and hard candies, sugar crystals that form on the sides of the pan are washed away with a fork wrapped in muslin or a pastry brush, dipped in hot water.

It's important to read through an entire recipe before you begin to make your candy. Then you will know just what equipment to use, how long the proc­ess will take, how much attention you need to give it at each stage, and whether you can take time out to peel the potatoes for supper. In making candy, timing is as important as it is in a comedy act. Doing the right thing at the right moment according to the read­ings of your thermometer is what will ensure consist­ent success for your efforts.

Equipment for candymaking need not be elaborate, but must include a candy thermometer if you expect good results. Cold-water tests for each stage of candy-making have been developed; but even when used by the experienced, they cover too wide a range for accuracy (the beginner cannot tell with any assurance the difference between a hard soft ball and a soft hard ball).

You will also need saucepans ranging from one to four quarts in size, if you are to make all the varieties; a wooden spoon for stirring or beating; a slab or plat­ter for cooling candies that are to be worked; pans to set your candy; waxed paper or cellophane for wrap­ping, and tin boxes for storing.

But there are really only three essentials for becom­ing an expert candy cook — a candy thermometer, a willingness to do precisely what must be done if the sugar and chocolate in your batches are to stay under control, and recipes that are detailed enough so you will know what must be done and how and when to doit.

The first you can buy, the second is up to you, and I hope that in this little book we have supplied the third.

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