As soon as I get it together we’re going to travel with Clementine Paddleford around These United States of America collecting the stories and recipes that she’ll publish in her famous cookbook, How America Eats (1960). For now, as it’s the start of candy-making season, we’ll stop in at Mrs. Baker’s farm in Freeville, New York (very close to Ithaca).
Freeville has this photo on its website. These are the real American places Clementine sought out.
“Mrs. Alwood Baker of Freeville, New York, is an expert candymaker. Chocolate dipping is one of her special accomplishments. She did her first chocolate dipping her senior year in the Home Economics Department of Cornell University.
Mrs. Baker is a farmer’s wife who once made sweets as a pin money business. Not any more. She hasn’t the time now with the 180-acre farm humming with varied activities. But at Christmas Mrs. Baker, with the help of daughter Gertrude, makes pounds and pounds of candy to fill the gift boxes. The chocolate creams are wonderful but her fudge is perfection. Soft, tongue-melting, rich as Croesus. Give the gold star to the caramel fudge, a silver star to the kind made with sour cream.
I took Trudy’s advice and got the recipe also for her mother’s nut torte. “The best thing she makes,” said the young daughter. And just for good measure I took the recipe for the steamed fig pudding that graces the Bakers’ table each Christmas Day.”
—Clementine Paddleford, How America Eats (1960)
Clementine Paddleford’s Vanilla Caramels
Yield: about 36 small pieces
1 C sugar 1 C heavy cream 1 C light corn syrup (Karo) ¼ C sweetened condensed milk ¼ C (½ stick) butter 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cook together sugar, cream, and corn syrup to thread-spinning stage (230˚ on candy thermometer). Add sweetened condensed milk and cook until a small amount of syrup forms a firm ball in cold water (240˚ on candy thermometer). Add butter and vanilla, remove from flame, stirring just enough to mix, and pour into a greased pan to cool. Cut when cold and wrap pieces in waxed paper.
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