"How To Make Your Own Candies" Circa 1891

Pulling Taffy

The 1891 Home Remedies for Man and Beast includes information on all kinds of instructions, including candy making.

Here are the recipes:

Maple Sugar Candy
Boil maple sugar until it becomes sufficiently thick. Then add a teaspoon of vinegar for every two quarts of syrup; smaller amounts proportionately. When the candy has reached a sufficient consistency, pour out. Any kin of nuts may be dropped into it, or different flavors may be used, to make almost any kind of candy preparation.

Fig or Raisin Candy
1 pound of sugar
1 pint of water
Set over a slow fire. When done add a few drops of vinegar and a lump of butter, and pour into pans in which split figs/raisins are laid.

Scotch Butter Candy
1 pound of sugar
1 pint of water
Dissolve and boil. When done add 1 tablespoon of butter and enough lemon juice and oil of lemon to flavor.

Taffy
2 1/2 cups of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of butter, 4 tablespoons of molasses, 3 tablespoons of water, 2 tablespoons of vinegar. Boil 20 minutes.

Peppermint Drops
2 1/2 cups of sugar, one-half cut of water; boil 10 minutes. Flavor with a few drops of the essence of peppermint. Stir until quite thick, then drop on a buttered paper.

Caramels
1 cup of molasses, two of sugar. Boil ten minutes. Add one large Tablespoon of flour, butter the size of an egg, 1/2 lb. of chocolate. Boil twenty minutes.

Molasses Candy
2 1/2 cups sugar, 1 cu of molasses, 1 1/2 cups of water; after it begins to boil add 1/4 tsp cream tartar; cook in the usual way, but do not stir. Before taking from the fire, add butter half the size of an egg. Do not butter your hands while pulling.

Everton Toffee
1 1/4 lbs of powdered loaf sugar; 1 teacup water, 1/4 lb butter, 6 drops essence of lemon. Put the water and sugar in a brass pan on the stove. Beat the butter to a cream; when the sugar is dissolved add the butter and keep stirring the mixture over the fire until it sets. Just before the toffee is done add the lemon.

Cocoanut Drops
One pound of cocoanut, 1 pound of powdered sugar, quarter of a pound of flour, whites of six eggs. Bake in a hot oven.

Ice Cream Candy
Two cups of granulated sugar, one-half cup of water; add one-fourth teaspoon of cream tartar dissolved in hot water as soon as it boils. Boil about 15 minutes; don't stir. When done it will be brittle if dropped in cold water. Add butter half the size of an egg  just before taking off the stove; pour into a buttered tin to cool, and pull it as hot as possible. Flavor while pulling with vanilla, or any extract to suit the taste.

Pop the corn and leave it in the pan, rejecting all the unpopped kernels. Then sake sugar or molasses and boil it until it becomes sufficiently waxy when dropped in water, so it will adhere to the kernels of the popcorn. Pour it while still warm on the corn and stir throughly. Then lift out with a spoon in such quantities as may be desired to roll into balls. If the corn gets too dry it will not pop. Immerse the ear one-half minute in water and it will pop nicely.


When I was fourteen a girlfriend taught me how to make hard candy. I remember boiling the sugar, adding flavoring,  and placing it on buttered wax paper. After it cooled we'd break it into sharp pieces. The recipe is similar to the first one found here http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Old-Fashioned-Hard-Candy