Candy-Making Revolutionized: Confectionery from Vegetables

by Mary Elizabeth Hall

Special Knife.
Fig. 3

A molasses-candy or taffy pull without a hook may be good fun, but it is hard on the candy as well as on the hands. A blacksmith can easily make the hook of round iron, about a half-inch in diameter and eighteen or twenty inches long. The rod should be bent until it forms roughly a letter J, with the tip about seven inches from the horizontal line. The top—the upper part of the horizontal line of the J—should be pounded flat, and two holes bored for screws.

Be sure to attach the hook to the wall firmly, and about level with the shoulders. Hooks may be purchased for about fifty cents apiece, but those made by the blacksmith will do as well. Even with the hook, it is well to wear canvas gloves, so that the mass can be handled hotter, and in a more hygienic fashion than with bare hands. Canvas gloves are easily laundered—something which cannot be said of the expensive buckskin gloves recommended for this purpose.

For use in "cutting in" fondant and other small masses it is well to buy a four inch wall paper knife—a tool which can be bought for from ten to twenty-five cents. Fondant should never be beaten, but instead it should be "cut in." This process is scraping up the whole mass, folding it over and cutting through with the knife. This motion is repeated, from each side of the pan, until the fondant becomes a ball which can be kneaded by the hand.

Procure smooth iron bars, two fifteen inches long and two eighteen inches long, all three-eighths of an inch thick and two inches wide. Any blacksmith shop can furnish them at slight expense, or they may be purchased more cheaply from the confectioner's supply stores. The bars are to be placed—set on edge—in the form of a rectangle on a marble slab. Be sure that the bars are carefully smoothed, for otherwise they will be untidy and soon rust. By lapping the edges and moving the bars back and forth, a receptacle of any size desired can be made. After buttering slab and bars, pour the candy into the enclosure. When it has cooled, remove the bars, and with one sharp incision cut the candy clear across. Use a sharp knife of uniform thickness and width, preferably with a thin blade.

It is also convenient to have two bars six inches long. They are useful in dividing a batch when different flavors or colors are used. The partitions will be useful for dividing the filling from the outside layers when a three-storied candy is to be made.

The need for these bars comes from the fact that one should never cut candy in a pan. The attempt to do so will always result in pieces with crumbling edges, as the knife has to be dragged through the candy instead of cutting down sharply, and as the sides of the pan allow no room for the expansion which the width of the knife will cause. Moreover, there is always waste in the corners and at the sides.

The candy-maker should appreciate the palette knife. The flexibility of the blade is such that it can be put to many uses for which the ordinary knife is unfitted. For instance, with a palette knife it is possible to coax refractory substances from the corners and edges of pans. Because of this flexibility, it is particularly useful in lifting modeled forms from a flat surface, as is explained in [Chapter VIII].

To the confectioner, one of the most useful tools is a modeling stick. This small tool is of great value to the candy-maker. It can be grasped easily and its shape allows of its use at many angles that would be inconvenient or impossible for a less adaptable tool. The roundness of the blunt end serves many purposes; the straighter side is particularly useful for smoothing off work, and the inside curves lend themselves to a great number of processes.