Cases.
Cases for shipping boxes of pop-corn may be made of corrugated paper or fiber board. Use that which is the cheaper in your own locality.
Crates made of wood may be the best method for your shipping.
Put 10, 12, 20 or 24 boxes in a case or crate.
CHAPTER V
RECIPES AND FORMULAS
POP-CORN must form the base of the confection; it is not a material that can be added to a confection with any improving result.
The public when it buys a nut bar, wants a nut bar, and when it buys a pop-corn bar, wants a pop-corn bar, and not a bar made up half and half.
In the use of cocoanut, raisins, or nuts in pop-corn, let the quantity of these be very small in proportion to the pop-corn.
Sell your partly popped and unpopped kernels for chicken or pig feed at one cent a pound. Do not harm your confectionery business by trying to use them in that.
You can grind that product in your mill (Stock No. [2001]) as fine as coffee. Sell it as a breakfast food to be served with cream and sugar or to be cooked and served like oatmeal. It will take more power to grind it than it takes to grind pop-corn, so do not expect your popper motor to do it.
An excellent breakfast dish is made by putting a little milk upon a molasses fine pop-corn cake. Try it.
Grind sifted pop-corn to make your fine corn cakes, not the siftings.
If you desire to put up an extra fine grade of buttered pop-corn, or pop-corn brittle, you may use a wire screen size one and one-third to the inch and separate the largest popped kernels for these high-grade goods.
You will find that a small amount of cocoanut will add to the quality of pop-corn when made up in vanilla or molasses syrup in the form of brittle or cakes.
Ground, shredded, thread or flaked cocoanut may be used to increase variety and please various trade. In fact, all three styles of cocoanut added to one style of pop-corn is a good thing.
The use of cocoanut in winter and in summer and its use in pop-corn in different climates with the risk of its becoming rancid are to be considered.
Fresh cocoanut will make a better tasting piece of confection, for it gives a flavor all its own. You must cut it up, grate it and use it in your confection on the same day in order to insure the quality of your goods. If the cocoanut is enclosed in a coating of the candy it will keep as well as the pop-corn.
Dried cocoanut will not become rancid, and will add to the quality of your confection. You need not be afraid of its becoming rancid when you do not get it completely incased with candy.
As to whether the cocoanut is ground, shredded or flaked, makes no difference as far as its use is concerned, but it gives a different flavor and appearance to the confection.
Butter should be cooked into the candy to get the best results.
Use a heaping tablespoonful of cream of tartar to ten pounds of sugar to stop graining when you use no corn syrup. Cook it in the candy.
A little Konut cooked in the candy for coating whole pop-corn makes it stir more easily. Use half as much as the recipe calls for butter.
Boiling or Cooking Syrup.
This is the most important operation. If you do it wrong nothing done afterwards can correct it.
Boiling is to take out the water from your syrup.
The proportions of ingredients will affect the amount of boiling required.
The higher the altitude at which the boiling is done the lower is the degree required to boil it, and the degree will vary to which the candy must be cooked to have it harden in cold water.
You must cook your syrup higher in summer than in winter to attain the same keeping qualities.
Sometimes it is advisable, especially in warm weather, to cook your syrup high and then add molasses, which will set it back. Then boil to your test.
Cooking your candy high may prevent you having time before it hardens to get it well spread over the corn. At the same time you must carry the various operations through as fast as possible so you may be able to use high cooked candy.
Any time you let a batch cook too high you can set it back by adding a little syrup or water.
The degree of cooking alone does not regulate the keeping. The proportion of the materials also has to do with the keeping qualities.
If you are using too small a proportion of corn syrup to the sugar the resulting candy will turn back to sugar, that is, it will grain just the same, no matter to what degree you cook it, unless you use cream of tartar.
In some kinds of ground pop-corn penny goods, it is desirable to let the candy grain in order to prevent stickiness. This is attained by the use of a smaller proportion of corn syrup to sugar and by not letting the goods cool off entirely before boxing. Boxing while warm induces graining.
Candied pop-corn that it is intended should grain a little, may be kept from sticking to the machines and tools by wiping them with a wet rag or sponge. You can easily tell whether to use water or butter when the other will not prevent sticking.
Grease is used in the candy to give the required elasticity and make it less moisture attracting.
The coating of pop-corn with candy is done to keep the pop-corn from absorbing moisture. Consequently the candy must be as moisture proof as possible. And each kernel of pop-corn should be entirely enclosed in a candy casing.
A recipe containing corn syrup and sugar may be boiled to a higher degree than a recipe with molasses in it. Also a clear sugar batch may be boiled to a higher degree than any other. It takes an expert to boil sugar to 345 degrees over an open fire and not burn it. If you use a lot of molasses you cannot boil high enough to prevent sticking and spoiling. Use light molasses, New Orleans molasses. It costs more, but gives quality.
Cooking to a high degree dries out the candy so that it attracts moisture more unless other ingredients, such as grease, are put in to counteract it.
Days when the air is heavy with moisture and the weather warm, it is better not to make candy or make only what you cannot get along without, for the reason that it becomes sticky so quickly that you cannot wrap it before it is in condition to stick to the paper.
You see that you cannot be told just what proportions of materials, cooked to a certain test, will result in a candy that will keep in your territory. You must find that out for yourself. This book merely points out the way.