The success of candy-making depends entirely upon boiling sugar to just the right degree. The candy will not harden if boiled too little. Another stage, where it hardens but sticks to the teeth, means the boiling was arrested at the hard-ball instead of the crack stage. Making candies. Unless a thermometer is used, a little practice seems necessary before one recognizes the small differences upon which success depends; but the experience once gained, it is easy to make a pound or more of candy at slight expense. In the country, where it is often impossible to get fresh candies, it is desirable to be able to make them. Where fondant is already prepared and kept in preserve jars, the cream bonbons can be quickly made. Carameled nuts are perhaps the least trouble to make of any candies.
Marble slab and iron bars. A marble slab is almost requisite in making candy, though greased papers and tins can be used. Candy poured upon a slab cools quickly, has an even surface, and can be easily removed. Four square iron bars are useful to confine the sugar. These can be placed so as to form bays of the size suitable to the amount of sugar used and the thickness required.
NOUGAT No. 1 (For Bonbons)
Blanch one cupful of almonds. Chop them and place them in the oven to dry. They must be watched that they do not brown. Put into a saucepan two and a half cupfuls of powdered sugar and a tablespoonful of lemon-juice. Place it on the fire and stir with a wooden spoon until it is melted and slightly colored. Let it stand a few minutes so it will be thoroughly melted and not grainy, then turn in the hot almonds, mix them together quickly, not stirring long enough to grain the sugar, and turn it onto an oiled slab. Spread it out in an even sheet, one eighth of an inch thick, using a half lemon to press it with. While it is still warm, mark it off into squares or diamonds. Break it into pieces when cold. These sheets of nougat can be lifted and pressed into molds, but it hardens quickly and is not as easy to work as the receipt No. 2.
NOUGAT No. 2 (For Molding)
Put two cupfuls of granulated sugar into a saucepan with a half cupful of water. Let it boil to the crack (310°) without stirring (see boiling sugar, page [511]), add a few drops of lemon-juice, and then turn in a half cupful of hot chopped blanched almonds which have been dried in the oven. Mix them together, stirring only enough to mix them and not grain the sugar. Pour it on an oiled marble slab, and press it as thin as an eighth of an inch or less. Cut the sheet of nougat into pieces of the right size and press them into oiled molds. Do this while the nougat is only just cool enough to handle, so it will be pliable. Loosen the form from the mold while it is still warm, but keep it in the mold until cold. The work has to be done quickly, as the nougat hardens in a few minutes. Perhaps the first trial to make nougat forms will be a failure, but a few trials will enable one to accomplish it.
If any pieces get broken off the molded forms, they can be stuck on again with liquid sugar or with royal icing. Horns of plenty are favorite forms for nougat. The molds come of different sizes. These pieces filled with glacé fruits make very ornamental pieces. The horns are molded in halves. When the nougat has hardened, the two pieces are tied together, rested on a muffin ring, and royal icing pressed through a pastry-tube into any ornamental shape along the edges. This quickly hardens and binds the horn together. A support for the form is made from nougat cut into strips and formed into a box-shape, open at one end.
