CREAM CANDY
PREP TIME: 30 MINUTES PLUS 30 MINUTES COOLING
COOK TIME: 20-25 MINUTES
MAKES: ABOUT 1½ lbs
3 cups sugar
1 cup water
¼ t cream of tartar
3 T distilled white vinegar
1 t vanilla
1. Butter a 9”x13” pan and set aside. Bring the water to boil in a small saucepan. Add the sugar to a 3½ qt saucepan. Pour water into the sugar. Add the cream of tartar and the vinegar.
2. Over medium-high heat, stir the mixture until the sugar is dissolved, then stop stirring and heat until the temperature reaches the hard-ball stage on a candy thermometer (250°F-265°F).
3. Once the mixture reaches the hard-ball stage, remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and pour into the buttered pan. Cool for about 30 minutes.
4. When the mixture is cool enough to work with, Remove small portions from the pans and pull until the candy turns white. Work into ropes and cut into small pieces with scissors. Enjoy immediately or store in a single layer in an open container.
Gather ingredients.
Butter a 9”x13” pan and set aside.
Bring 1 cup of water to a boil in a small pan.
Add 3 cups of sugar to a 3½ qt saucepan. Pour boiling water into the sugar.
Add ¼ t cream of tartar.
Add 3 T distilled white vinegar.
Stir to combine. Over medium high heat, continue to stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Once the sugar is dissolved, stop stirring and heat until the mixture reaches the hard-ball stage on a candy thermometer (250°F-265°F).
Remove from heat and stir in 1 t vanilla.
Pour into the buttered pan.
Cool for 30 minutes.
Once mixture is cool, remove a small portion from the pan.
Pull until the candy turns white.
To do this, work the caramel colored ropes back and forth.
Once white, twist the rope.
Cut each twist into small pieces with scissors.
Enjoy immediately or store in a single layer in an open container.
I think I will have to make this. MaryJane is this like making taffy? Looks really pretty and good. Thanks for posting.
Yes, a version of taffy. Enjoy!
So glad to find this. My grandmother made this candy every winter.She always told me it had to be very cold and dry out. This is my favorite candy.
is this kin to Divinity Candy ?
No. THis is a version of taffy. Divinity is a meringue based cookie.
I am going to try this recipe! It looks yummy.
Mary Jane,
Is it true that the weather must be cold and dry in order to make this recipe? I remember hearing my Granny say this too.
read your recipe and would like to make this candy but need to know what measure is a T ?
Standard to recipes is a capital T for tablespoon and small t for teaspoon.
Can’t wait til cold outside. What if I made it in cold environment in my house. Do you think it would work?
Most cream candies require cold weather and low humidity for best results.
Can you add food coloring and is it sweet tasting also does it turn hard.
1
Can add flavorings and color
Do you have a recipe for caramel candy (not sauce) that uses ONLY brown sugar and butter? Seems like every recipe on the planet uses cream, or milk, or “vegan drinks” nowadays to make “caramel”.
It sounds very fussy to want the simple recipe, but my great grandmother always made caramel candy for Christmas using only those two ingredients, and I’d like to continue the tradition.
Grandma made it a few times, but never wrote it down, and my mom hasn’t a clue about how it was done. She said she remembers “Grandma used her big wooden spoon, a cast-iron pot, and a wood-burning stove…”, but nothing about proportions.
I would be grateful if anyone can post that recipe. Pretty sure I’m not just dreaming this. 🙂
Sounds as if the recipe you are looking for is… Brown sugar butter toffee…. One cup of brown sugar and one cup of butter cooked in a heavy saucepan to 300 degrees. You can add 1 teaspoon of vanilla or some nuts if you choose.
My mother made this type of candy too. It was called Taffy.
Looks like taffy to me. My mother made it once when I was about 6 and I had several friends over to pull the taffy, it was fun and a mess, needless to say. We never were allowed to do it again.
As a child, we used to butter up our hands and have taffy pulls!…Memories
This looks like fun. I haven’t made candy before and have always wanted to try it. It sounds pretty easy and delicious.
If you have a marble slab, butter it and pour the hot mass on that instead of in a pan. I have never been successful in letting it cool on its own, too hard and brittle to work by that point. On a slab you can work it with bench scrapers to cool it fast. What a lovely creamy confection when done right…yum!
Yes that is how i was always told to make it with a marble slab to cool it on before you twist it – and it’s called “pulled candy” or “cream candy” just some slight differences in the recipe.
Back in the day (1940s-1950s), one of my aunts made this candy. She did the pulling outside on a night when there was no humidity; usually in the month of October or November. It’s delicious and I’m happy that I found this recipe. Thank you!
I meant to say that this IS NOT taffy. It is more like a butter-cream, but not.
this sound like Edenburg rock my dad used to make it but you start working the cooked syrup sooner after you put it in a cooling pan. He made a pen at the inside of our kithen door and start working the syrup over the pen until the syrup becomming glossy white and if pull it to the bottem and leave it it pull up. You then pull it out and start cutting with a sissor in small cushions. After a day or 2 it melt in your mouth. The secret is to use only the best clean white sugar. Selati will not do. Hullets is the only sugar . And wet weather also do not work with this candy unless you are like me who love the flops.
My grandmother made something similar….would till the weather was cool so she could put the pan on snow to cool!
And then we would pull….yummy,
Hi: I read your comment about not having your grandma’s recipe for
vinegar taffy. I don’t know how to get
A recipe I pinned to you, but it has
1/2 cup vinegar in it. If you can get to
my “Candy” pins. 🙂
Millie Hubbs
Is it supposed to end up like hardish candy? My sister and I made it tonight and it ended up hardening after we pulled and rolled it.
Yes hard, enjoy!
Does it melt in your mouth like creamy butter?
This is NOT a hard candy, Mary Jane. It should ‘cream’ after a few hours. Melts in your mouth just like a butter mint only without the mint. I am surprised that you got it to pull as much as you did without it hardening more than it did. This candy should not be stirred or disturbed at any point. Even the old clipping that you show says nothing about stirring. A better recipe is to put 3 cups sugar into large heavy pan. Pour 1/2 cup water over and bring to a boil over medium high heat WITHOUT stirring ever. Start dribbling 1 cup heavy cream slowly around edges to keep pan boiling. All the sugar may not be dissolved-that’s OK. Boil slowly until 252 degrees. Pour quickly only frozen, buttered marble slab. Pull edges up as candy cools and fold toward middle so it cools evenly. When cool enough to handle, pull until white and and loses it sheen. It will also make a clacking sound now as you smack the ends together. Twist into a rope and cut into bite-size pieces onto wax paper to dry. Keep pieces separate until creamed so they don’t stick together and then store in airtight container. I cover with more wax paper while creaming so they don’t get dry and stale. Thus can happen very quickly and then your candy will be sub quality. This should be a very soft, creamy texture. I don’t add any other ingredients, not even vanilla. This is a regional southern specialty that has local recipes, but this is the only one that performs consistently for me. The local candy store makes it and it seems the same as mine, (no vanilla, cream of tartar or vinegar). All other recipes that I have tried are very finicky and give inconsistent results. Hope this helps!
Hi Valerie, it sounds like your version of cream candy is a regional favorite. Thank you for sharing your recipe, it sounds scrumptious. We adapted this recipe from the Comfort Sisters Magazine (circa March 1916), which does not include cream in the ingredients. The generic term “cream candy” refers to the creamy color of the candy, since we typically think of hard candies as being somewhat transparent or dyed.
You should make a youtube video of you making this candy. I have tried so hard to make this candy but it never turns out right. I love this candy and have searched for a recipe but I think I’m doing something wrong but not for sure what it is.
yes excactly!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! I ate this when I was a child and always wanted to get the recipe!!! Can’t thank you enough for sharing.
My grandma used to make us this as kids, and we gobbled it up! When I grew up I learned to make it. Love this yummy treat, and you get a good workout as you’re pulling it. My question is, can this be made with Stevia. I’m dietetic now in my older years, I’m hoping there might be a sugar substitute I could use.
Happy to see this recipe. We called it pull candy and I miss it! Thanks for sharing!
Hi there. We made what we called Stick Jaw. Some butter in a pan and add sugar then some vinegar. It boils to a transparent mixture. If you put a spoon into the mixture and then into a cup of water, the toffee should harden to the point that you cannot remove it from the spoon. You have to crack/bang it off.
Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and when solid, crack it into pieces. It is not called Stick Jaw for nothing!!
Regards Frances from South Africa
I made this, but it didn’t cream. What did i do wrong?
Did you use any substitutions? Did you check the temperature? Did you follow our step-by-step photos?
This is not old fashioned cream candy. It’s vinegar taffy. There’s a big difference. Cream candy doesn’t have vinegar and it creams overnight. It only resembles vinegar taffy when it’s first pulled. I make both. Go to My Country Table.com if you want to see Kentucky Cream Pull Candy. They’re both very good.
So you’re saying that back in 1912, the Comfort Sister didn’t have the name right either? I suspect the name bears local flavor and there isn’t a hard and fast rule about what it’s called.
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This sounds like the pull taffy my grandma always made. She would pull it till it turned white and then cut the ropes into small pieces. She kept it in tins and would dust it lightly with confectioners sugar to keep it from sticking. All the neighbor kids would show up when she made it for a little baggie full to take home and enjoy.
This is actually Vinegar Taffy. It doesn’t cream. It stays like taffy. Everyone confuses it with Kentucky Cream Pull candy wihich starts out like taffy but creams over night. I make both. They’re both very good but the actual cream candy will melt in your mouth after it creams. It’s only like taffy when first pulled.
Can you add different flavorings to this recipe?
We did not test any flavorings. Try it and let us know.