The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-05-03
MAKING CANDY
The Cooking Room Is a Small
Boys Paradise.
Chocolate, Sugar and Spice, but
Cook Doesn't Eat a Bite.


fairy sticks. nut glaces, all day suckers,
fondant, chocolate, taffy, nougat, cara
mels, divinity, peppermint drops and
fudge. How do they dip chocolates?
How do they toast marshmallows?
How, do they mold filling? How dos
| they cut sticks? Descend to the candy
! kitchen beneath the Arbor confec-
tionery shop and ascertain all these
things.
As you enter the room bounded on
north south, east and west by bottles,
boxes, cans. Jars. pots and trays of
candy, a fragrant odor of chocolate is
waited toward you. The candy maker
is boiling fudge. If you're looking for
an excellent recipe. try this. Throw
into a gallon and half of sweet cream
ten pounds of sugar and a couple or
pounds of glucose; add three pounds of
chocolate and cook until it reaches the
hard ball stage. This will be found SUI
ficient for sixty starving little boys
Topeka is as conservative in it's taste
for bonbons as in its taste for theaters
and other pleasant things. 1t chngs
affectionately to aristocrat1c choco-
lates, and purchases hundreds OF
pounds week. Often the city-in all
probability the feminine part of the
city-eats 80, 600 caramels day. Taffy,
fudge. and the less expensive sweets
have not attained such popularity
The two most interesting rooms in
connection with the kitchen are the
starch room and the dipping closet
Starch room presents a soapy pic
ture of a misty laundry on Monday
morning; you see pillows of Immaculate
clothes and tubs of fluffy suds. The
starch room in candy kitchen Is
different proposition. 1t resembles
snowy cave; it contains trays full of
frost and a mound like a snow drift.
It's enchanting in its dazzling white
ness. It's purpose is for making filings
The cook shovels pou%ds of the snowy
starch to a broad wooden tray, makes
it smooth as a Kansas prairie, then
dents it with a molder. Into the dents
is poured the filling-maple, coffee,
cherry, strawberry or cream as the case
may be. 1t hardens quickly and is
carried on creased paper to the dipper
when it is cold.
Dipping Is an Art.
Chocolate dipping is an art, like
painting a good picture, or writing
newspaper story. An expert chocolate
dipper does not learn her trade in less
than two years. By that time she
can coat a dozen chocolates in sixty
seconds and not waste a drop. The
large manufactures have machine
dipped chocolates; in this case soft
filings cannot be used. Handicapped
chocolates are like hand-picked apples
above the average.
The dipper melts her chocolate on
an electric stove pours it on a wooden
slab. and molds it with her hands until
it reaches the right temperature. The
Filings at the left of her, the trays
at the right. She flips the centers
into the chocolate with one hand, drops
them into the trays with the other. |
1t looks simple. The difficulty lies in
not smearing the coating over the tray. |
Not a drop is lost.
Nothing is wasted in a candy shop. |
The chocolate coating that hardens is |
scraped up and re-melted. Candy is |
do
waste are converted into fudge or choc- |
olate caramels.
The most difficult candy to make is
the dainty fairy stick, adored by the |
kiddie. The sugar is heated to $40 de- |
greeS Fahrenheit, ten degrees lower |
than the scorching point. The mixture, |
favored with cinnamon, wintergreen
or Glove. is poured into three-cornered |
pan and rolled into sticks when warm. |
There's only one thing about candy |
making; that's sugar; but you've got to |
know all about it," declared Tom |
O'Connor, the cook in white overalls. |
He was carefully measuring an equal
amount of maple, coffee and vanilla |
for the special, otherwise known as
Topeka favorite, or Cleveland's choice.
President Mudge's FavOrite Candy.
CIevelands choice is the candy that |.
made Topeka famous. H. U. Nudge, i
president of the Rock Island, has d |
standing order at Rigby's. They send |
him five pounds every week. 1t goes |
to New York, Chicago or to his private |
car-but it always goes. |
Marshmallows aren't toasted on a |
hatpin. Toasted marshmallows' |
brings to mind a college girls rooms, |
pillows, books and remnants, with |
lassies in kimonos lowering over
gas-jet and saying, "Ouch.'' Store |
marshmallows are rolled in toasted |
cocoanut; the process is less fraught /
with danger, but the product is not |
half so good.
The question as to whether or not /
a candy-maker eats sweets is a thread
bare one. OF course he doesn't.
How long before you reach the alb
stemious stage?' he was asked.