1½ lb. sugar.
½ pint water.
1 fresh grated cocoanut.
½ lb. bon-bon cream.
1 teaspoonful vanilla flavor.
Put the sugar and water on the fire, stir until it commences boiling,
but just before it boils, wash down the sides of the kettle with a
damp cloth and cold water, then add the grated cocoanut, and continue
stirring until it has boiled a little while, when you test it by
lifting the paddle out, and if by taking a little of the candy between
your thumb and forefinger it is good and sticky, and strings out when
you pull your fingers apart, it has cooked enough. This is about the
only method of testing it, and you need have no fear of spoiling it, as
it is a very easy candy to make as you will see.
When it is cooked to the right consistency, set off the fire and add
the bon-bon cream, and stir this through the batch thoroughly until
it is dissolved, and the batch becomes creamy looking and commences to
stiffen up. In case it does not get stiff enough to dip out as directed
later on, it is because it was not cooked quite enough, and you may
overcome this by simply adding a little more bon-bon cream. Add the
vanilla extract when creaming it. Now take an ordinary table fork, and
commence at the edge and take up a small quantity of the candy on the
fork, and lay it on wax paper, and as you lift the fork up from it, the
same as bon-bons, the cocoanut will string up to some extent and make
them rough looking, which improves their looks. As to the amount to
take out on the fork each time, will say that you should take enough to
make the kisses about the size of your thumb, as they will be oblong in
shape, when dipping them out with an ordinary fork in this manner. They
should retain their shape when dropped on the wax paper, but if they
do not do so, simply work in a little more bon-bon cream. Always dip
it from around the edge, as it gets harder there first. After dropping
out about one-third of the batch in this manner, color the remainder a
pink, and flavor with strawberry, but work it in well with the paddle,
and in case the batch is a little too thick by this time, you may add a
very little cold water to thin it. Now dip them out the same as before,
until you have about half of it remaining, then into this remainder
pour some melted chocolate, which you must have ready, add a little
more vanilla, work it in well, and dip out the same as before. You now
see you have three different colored and flavored kisses from the same
batch, and these different flavors do not interfere with each other
by putting them in as directed, as the strawberry kills the vanilla,
and in the last instance the chocolate kills the strawberry. You may,
if you prefer, make the whole batch one flavor, but you have more of
a variety if you make them in this manner. You may use the ordinary
desiccated cocoanut, which comes put up in packages if you wish, but if
you use fresh grated cocoanut, you will find they are much nicer and
will keep longer. While it is not necessary, it improves them greatly,
by adding the well beaten whites of two eggs to the batch when you put
in the bon-bon cream, and working it in at the same time. This has a
tendency to make them a little lighter, smoother, and more fluffy.
If your batch gets too hard to drop out nicely before you have
finished, it indicates that you either have cooked it too long, or you
did not work fast enough after you had mixed in the bon-bon cream. But
the chances are that you did not work fast enough.