Lisa Abraham, The Columbus Dispatch| The Columbus Dispatch
It’s the time of year when many home cooks dust off their vintage candy recipes to create holiday treats.
For 95-year-old Eugene Baker, of Laura in Miami County, that means pulling out his trusted peanut-brittle recipe clipped from a November 1969 edition of The Dispatch.
The recipe appeared with an article about the goodies being sold at the 48th annual Twig Bazaar fundraiser for what was then known as "the Children’s Hospital."
The recipe, submitted by Mrs. Samuel Rife, is an old-fashioned brittle that calls for two heaping teaspoons of baking soda.
Baking soda helps to aerate brittle — it literally makes the molten candy bubble in the pot — to create a brittle with an airy, almost honeycomblike texture that crunches easily when eaten.
In an email exchange conducted with the help of his daughter, Denise Spires of Upper Arlington, Baker noted the importance of using very fresh baking soda when making the candy.
Baker’s friends and family look forward to the brittle each Christmas, along with other candies he makes, such as cinnamon hard tack.
For Ruth Fry of Pataskala, it’s her peanut-butter fudge that family and friends wait for, and not just at the holidays.
“It’s a go-to all year, not just for Christmas,” she said. “It’s fantastic.”
Fry, coincidentally, also found her recipe in The Dispatch and still has the original clipping from October 1969.
When her children were younger, their friends used to bring her the ingredients from their mothers’ kitchens so she could make the fudge for them, Fry recalled.
The recipe, she said, is simple (just six ingredients) and almost foolproof.
Fry, 70, who retired from the Ohio Inspector General’s office, said she gets regular requests to bring a batch to the lanes where she and her husband bowl.
The secret to her success: She uses a candy thermometer.
A batch that turns out dry and crumbly is the victim of overcooking, so watch the pot closely so the candy just reaches the soft-ball stage (235 to 240 degrees) and no higher.
Soc Goumas, who owns Goumas Confections in Newark and Granville, said anyone who is making candy at home should invest in a candy thermometer.
“It’s really hard to deal without one,” he said.
The instructions in many candy recipes advise cooking sugar mixtures to “soft ball,” “hard ball” or “hard crack” stages. The terms refer to how a small amount of the cooked sugar will react when added to cold water. Many home cooks still use the water test when making candy.
Modern candy thermometers, however, are marked with the terms, as well as the degrees, making it easier to follow a recipe precisely.
“You need to cook (candy) to the (recommended) temperature,” Goumas said. ”Don’t stray from that or it will get too hard to too soft.”
He said the longer a candy is cooked, generally, the harder it will become, which is why hard tack and some peanut brittles are cooked to more than 300 degrees. The same rule holds true for fudge.
In his shop, Goumas dips all of his fudge in chocolate and purposely cooks it to be a bit firmer than fudge that would be eaten by itself, where a creamier texture would be desired.
When making any candy, he said, use quality ingredients to help ensure a quality outcome.
“Especially when you are making a small batch." he said, "It makes no sense buying the cheap stuff."
Candy making temperatures
Sugar cooking stages are based on how the sugar reacts in cold water.
Thread: 223 to 234 degrees; the sugar drips from a spoon and stretches into thin threads in cold water.
Soft ball: 235 to 240 degrees; the sugar forms into a ball in cold water but loses its shape when taken out.
Firm ball: 245 to 250 degrees; the sugar forms into a ball in cold water and remains a ball when taken out, but loses its shape when pressed.
Hard ball: 250 to 264 degrees; the sugar forms into a ball in cold water, remains a ball when taken out, and keeps its shape when pressed, but still feels sticky.
Soft crack: 270 to 290 degrees; the sugar forms into long threads in cold water; the threads are stretchy and slightly sticky when taken out.
Hard crack: 298 to 310 degrees; the sugar forms into long threads in cold water; the threads are brittle and snap easily when taken out.
Source: "Field Guide to Candy" by Anita Chu (2009, Quirk Books)
Recipes
• English Toffee
• Peanut Brittle
• Peanut Butter Fudge
labraham@dispatch.com
