Pour one pint of water and one-fourth pint of vinegar over six pounds of sugar and leave it until fully dissolved. Place a sugar-pan over the fire and let the contents boil fast till thick enough to put into ropes. Mix in them one-fourth pound of butter and boil hard for two minutes; stir in one teaspoonful of dry soda and remove the candy from the fire. Allow it to stand until the effervescence ceases and then stir in a flavoring of vanilla. Turn it out onto greased dishes, and with the tips of the fingers pull it until it is white.

Cream Candy

Put one tablespoonful of butter, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, one teacupful of water and two pounds of lump sugar into a saucepan and boil the mixture for twenty minutes. Before removing it from the fire add a little extract of vanilla or essence of lemon, and pour it into a flat tin dish, stirring it until quite cold. It is then ready for use.

Nut Candy

Put three breakfast cupfuls of sugar into a sugar-boiler with one teacupful each of vinegar and water and the strained juice of a lemon. Set the boiler on the fire and stir until boiled to the crack (see Sugar Boiling). Drop it in small quantities on a well-buttered baking-sheet, put half a blanched kernel on each, and when nearly cold add more syrup. When the required number are done, dry them on a sieve over the fire, and they are ready for use.

Rock Candy

This is really crystallized sugar in its simplest form. Place some clarified sugar in a sugar boiler, and boil to the feather, and add a few drops of acetic acid or spirits of wine in order to assist the separation of the crystals from the more hardened portions of the syrup. Pour the syrup into moulds, and let it remain in the hot closet at a temperature of from 90 to 100 deg. of heat; leave it there for eight or ten days, according to the size of the crystal desired. In the process of crystallizing, the impurities contained in the sugar are left behind in the water, and the sugar is rendered as nearly pure as possible. When the crystallization is complete, pour off the surplus syrup, turn the mould upside down, and let it remain until fully drained. The moulds are made of strong tin or copper, and must be considerably smaller at the bottom than at the top, and pierced with small holes round the sides in uniform rows, tier above tier, and sewn with coarse thread across the mould from side to side, after which they must be pasted up with paper, or covered with potter's clay all over the outside, in order effectually to close the holes and prevent the syrup from leaking out. When quite drained, remove the paper from the sides, warm the mould equally round the outside, and strike the edge of it with a sharp, hard knock upon the table, when the sugar will relieve itself from the mould. Place the mould upon a sieve or board, and set it in the hot closet until it is perfectly dry. This candy may be tinted a rose or scarlet color by adding a little prepared carmine or cochineal before boiling. The purer the sugar used for making the syrup the whiter the candy will be.

Peanut Candy

Dissolve two pounds of sugar and one saltspoonful of cream of tartar in two gills of cold water; then set it over a moderate fire and cook till brittle, adding and stirring in about one-half ounce of butter. Shell some peanuts, and rub off as much of the inner skin as possible. Put a layer of them two deep at the bottom of some well-buttered tins, and when the candy is ready, pour it over and leave till cold. Then cut it or break it into pieces of a convenient size.

Vanilla Candy Tablets

Put one pound of loaf sugar into a sugar-boiler with just enough water to dissolve it. Boil the sugar to the ball degree, then pour in a few drops of acetic acid and flavor with essence of vanilla. Work the sugar against the sides of the pan with a silver spoon, using the back part of the bowl, thus giving it an opalized appearance. When through working the sugar, pour it into a tin dish, leaving it until it is nearly set, then mark the tablets out with the back of a knife on the surface of the sugar. Before the sugar is poured in, the tin should be lightly brushed over with the oil of almonds. Dry the sugar in the screen, and when it is hard, snap it in two where it is marked.

Walnut Candy

Crack the walnuts and shell them carefully. Pound or chop one and one-half pints of the kernels. Mix three-fourths of a teacupful of vinegar and one and one-half teaspoonfuls of gelatine dissolved in a little hot water with one and one-half pounds of brown sugar, place it over a moderate fire and cook until quite stiff. Pour a thin layer of this syrup into buttered-tins, then add the pounded or chopped walnuts, spreading them evenly, pour over the remainder of the syrup and let the candy stand until cold; then cut it into squares.