No. 1. OPERA CREAM.
For Opera Caramels.
Put 20 pounds of sugar in a clean copper kettle and add
1½ gallons cream,
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar.
Cook to 238° or 240°. Pour off on a damp slab and let remain until cool; then with a paddle cream it as other fondants and when done cover up with a damp cloth; let remain for one hour and it is ready for use.
OPERA CARAMELS.
Don’t make only such flavors as vanilla, strawberry and chocolate operas; they are chestnuts and an eyesore to all, and are made by all candy makers, good and bad. First, cut up in small pieces 1 pound cherries, and set them one side; then chop up fine 1 pound pecans and 1 pound English walnuts, and 1 pound pineapple and set them one side; now chop up ¼ pound of pistachio nuts, and set them one side; also ½ pound almonds. You will have now five kinds of operas to start with; now get the covers of eight five-pound candy boxes and cover the bottom of each with wax paper and you will be ready for business. Weigh 2½-pound pieces of opera cream, and work in each piece the nuts or fruit you have just prepared and lay it in the box cover; keep on until all the five kinds are used up. Now fill one with plain opera cream, lightly flavored with vanilla, with some color—a delicate pink—and flavor strawberry, and the other color with chocolate; now you will have eight kinds of operas. Let stand a few hours, turn box cover upside down, tear off the wax paper and mark with a caramel cutter, but don’t cut them up in pieces, only as they are sold; put them in nice clean pans and when the people see eight kinds of operas it will sell them quicker than gazing at those three chestnuts—vanilla, strawberry and chocolate.
CREAM FRUIT BAR.
Place in kettle