Wet two heaping cupfuls of granulated sugar with a half pint of cold water and put over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan. When the sugar is dissolved, stir in a bit of cream of tartar (as large as a Lima bean) dissolved in a spoonful of cold water. Boil the candy until a bit hardens when dropped into cold water; remove from the fire, stir in a teaspoonful of vanilla, turn into greased pans, mark into squares and set aside to harden. Or, as the candy cools, pull it with buttered finger-tips into long white ropes. Let it get very cold and brittle before eating.
Chocolate fudge (No. 1)
Boil together a cupful of sugar, one cupful of grated chocolate, one-half cupful of milk, one-quarter of a cupful of molasses. Boil, stirring often, until a little hardens in cold water. Remove from the fire, beat in a teaspoonful of vanilla, stir for a minute and turn into a buttered pan.
Chocolate fudge (No. 2)
Three pounds of light brown sugar, one-half pound of chocolate, one-half cupful of cream, one-quarter pound of butter, three tablespoonfuls of vanilla extract.
Put all into a porcelain kettle, or smooth iron pot, excepting the vanilla extract. Set on the back of the stove and let it melt slowly—two hours are none too long, if you value smooth, rich fudge. Then pull forward to boil about ten minutes. Try, at the end of seven or eight minutes, in ice-cold water, and if it “balls” in the fingers, take off and beat, adding the vanilla. Turn out into buttered tins, and score when cool enough.
Penotchie
Put over the fire in a saucepan three cupfuls of light brown sugar—not coffee sugar—with a cupful of milk and boil to the stage when dropped into cold water it makes a soft but firm ball in the fingers. Add, then, a teaspoonful of butter; take from the fire, flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla and stir in a cupful of kernels of English walnuts, hickory nuts, or pecans, broken into pieces. Turn out upon a well-buttered shallow pan and mark into squares with a buttered knife.
This is sometimes known as “Penuchie,” sometimes as “Mexican Kisses.”