To make candy is to assist at a miracle.
Starting with sugar and water you can make fondant, white taffy, lollipops and barley sugar merely by boiling the syrup to higher and higher temperatures and adding flavoring. The change that takes place with each degree is the miracle.
If you add milk, or butter, or cream, or chocolate you widen the range to include fudge and caramels, butterscotch and toffee; add an egg white and you get nougat or divinity; some gelatin and you have marshmallows or jellies.
Of course that's not the whole story. It's what you do to the sugar syrup at every stage, as well as temperature variations, that decides the texture or quality of your candy.
If you wanted to eat plain sugar, you wouldn't bother to make candy. One of your chief concerns will be to see that your candy doesn't turn back into sugar. That's why it is important to add to sugar syrups an ingredient that slows down crystallization - such as corn syrup, cream of tartar, or an acid such as lemon juice or vinegar.
That's also why most of the candies that have few ingredients besides sugar and water are not stirred after reaching the boiling point - because it has been discovered that stirring can start off a chain reaction and cause your candy to crystallize.
When you're making this type of candy, especially fondant and hard candies, sugar crystals that form on the sides of the pan are washed away with a fork wrapped in muslin or a pastry brush, dipped in hot water.
Wonderful...
From the big book of Bon Bon Recipes.
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