Unless you're fond of blackstrap molasses like me or a valetudinarian like M. Woodhouse, the father in Jane Austen's Emma, you will probably find this recipe boring. Still, it's one of my favorite and the best way to close the year. (Incidentally, the last post of 2018 was about molasses-based Turkish Delight.) Paraphrased from theriac, a remedy-for-all concocted in the late Antiquity and prescribed until the Middle Ages, English treacle or American molasses is packed with vitamins, minerals and nutrients. So even if Miss Eliza Leslie did not categorize her recipe under 'Preparations for the Sick', molasses candy is truly a superfood. Needless to say that molasses is as harmful to teeth as is sugar and that candy of any type must be eaten sparingly, at best after meals. Sounds didactic? Maybe it does but I know I'm right.
I would also like to note here, as I probably should have done before -since I'm truly fond of molasses and often post recipes using it- that while Miss Leslie published her New cookery book (1857), sugar-cane products were still being a gift to European & American families (though not appreciated as such) from hard-laboring slaves. Molasses also used to be the only type of sweetener for everyday use, both in the Old and the New World, until the 1880s. Today, blackstrap molasses is considered a healthfood or added to recipes for its 'exotic' flavor but in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, molasses was a favorite children's treat. For me, it evokes not just the slave trade but also the so-called 'golden age of piracy', which -despite the idealized portrait of Jack Sparrow in Disney's popular films- was another black page in history.
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| From William Clark's Ten views in the island of Antigua, 1823 |
Back to molasses candy. Miss Leslie's recipe couldn't be more accurate: four parts molasses combined with one part brown sugar are heated and stirred in a double boiler until all of the liquid evaporates and the spoon will no longer move! Grated lemon peel, chopped nuts, or both, are optional but recommended. Now if (like me) you have not much experience with candy-making, perhaps you'd appreciate the following tips which I've learnt the hard way.
Despite everything, molasses candy is probably the most exciting of all candy recipes and definitely worth trying. The very good news is that, unless you burn the mixture by cooking directly on the stove, any preparation with molasses tastes great. If it's not brittle hardcrack, as Miss Leslie suggests, it will be chewable firmball that you can shape into whatever shape you like and keep in the refrigerator. Like the honey-enriched version that I developed from Miss Leslie's herb candy recipe a few weeks ago, leftover molasses candy is based on 100% pure ingredients and therefore usable in lots of different ways around the kitchen, e.g. in cookies or syrups. It may also be used for sweetening milk, ginger tea, or just plain water -and even for colouring liquor. (I'm thinking about white rum.)
I believe that ingredients for candy must be of excellent quality so organic blackstrap molasses and demerara sugar are best. I'm not quite sure what the resulting confection would be if demerara was replaced with molasses sugar and to be frank, I'm not sure either than 19th century housewives ever used that. Miss Leslie said 'brown' so I imagine she meant unrefined as opposed to 'loaf' (white) sugar that she used in other recipes. To avoid spoiling too much of my favorite molasses, I also divided her recipe by 4, ending up with a handful of candies. So be free to adjuct the quantities. My 3.5 hours of stirring the mixture in the double-boiler resulted in 'chewable firmball', as I noted above. Be free to adjust cooking time as well. Although changing the ingredients is not recommended, you could try adding some butter -in order to make taffy.
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