Part 2. Chapter 26. Boiling Sugar - Candy Making

"I can teach sugar to slip down your throat a million of ways."

- Dekker and Ford.

Ices are more accurately prepared when a syrup of a certain density is used instead of sugar and water. Syrup is also preferable to sugar for sweetening fruit punch, lemonade, etc., and many prefer it for sweetening tea and coffee. Sugar is also boiled for nougat, many kinds of candy, for fondant used in candy making and icing cakes, and for spun sugar, of which there are several varieties. The boiling and spinning of sugar and the making of candies are classed among the "frills of cookery." But though every one cannot hope to master all the intricacies of this branch of the culinary art, there is no reason why young people should nor become, with advantage to themselves, expert in making simple wreaths of spun sugar or candies from boiled sugar and fondant. In fact,what better training in habits of accuracy of observation and judgment can be had than that which is necessary in boiling sugar to the various degrees required in candy making. The sugar passes so quickly from one stage to another that nothing but the strictest attention to the business in hand will insure success. With a sugar thermometer the condition of the sugar can be determined at a glance. Professional candy makers, from daily experience, may dispense with the thermometer, but tyros in the art will find it of great advantage.