Grandma Martins Divinity Fudge
Last week Xander had to do a small project for his English class. They were studying the book To Kill A Mockingbird. At the end of the book, they were given several choices of projects to do. Xander chose the project option about food during the 1930’s. I have many recipes from that time period, my mother has passed them down to me over the years, that belonged to my grandmother Martin.
As part of the project, Xander had to pick a food that is mentioned in the book and recreate that food. He chose divinity since it was used as a treat at a carnival in the book. We found a recipe online and compared it to grandma’s recipe. It had the exact measurements of grandma’s recipe, so I set to work making the divinity according to the website, while Xander took grandma’s recipe card to get a copy of it to include in his project.
Now, I have made divinity before, so I know making candy isn’t an easy thing. I followed that website recipe to a T. And my husband beat that divinity till I thought he was going to fall over. It never set up.
About that time I took a hard look at grandma’s recipe. Hers was different, requiring cooking the corn syrup twice, and to a higher temperature than the other recipe. And grandma’s recipe had notes on the back like, “use a metal spoon”, and “only make divinity when the humidity is very low” the best note was “beat till it loses its gloss and looks like divinity”. Thanks, grandma.
Back to the kitchen. This time following GRANDMAS recipe.
They took 3x as much time to make. We had to cook the sugar longer, and beat the mix with a metal spoon, not a mixer until the mixture was not glossy anymore and “looked like divinity”. 😉
They turned out perfect.
Ingredients
- 2 C. Sugar
- 1/2 C. water
- 1/2 C. Corn Syrup
- a pinch of salt
- 2 egg whites
Instructions
- Separate eggs and whisk egg whites till stiff peaks. Set these aside while you cook your sugar.
- Put sugar, water, corn syrup and a pinch of salt, in a heavy pan. Attach a good candy thermometer to the side. Cook on medium heat till the mixture reaches 240 degrees.
- Take the hot mixture and slowly drizzle about 1/3 of it into the egg whites as you beat them together.
- Put the sugar mixture back on the stove and heat until 265 degrees, about 10 minutes more.
- Repeat the slow drizzle over the egg whites with the remaining sugar until both parts are mixed together.
- Beat the mixture with a metal spoon incorporating air into the mixture as much as possible and watching carefully for the gloss to start going away. When the mix starts to change texture, you know it's time to start scooping!
- Place by spoonfuls onto waxed paper and let the candy set till completely cool.