Prayed-Over Taffy
For most of the years since I've taught at our high school I have organized a taffy pull on the last day of school before Christmas vacation. This year not everyone was absolutely sure they wanted to do this. Some remembered the near disaster last year when it was cooked too long and could hardly be pulled.
I had done a good bit of research online earlier to make sure I knew exactly how to do this right. I also got the name of a local Amish woman who is an experienced taffy maker. 245 degrees is the right temperature for properly cooked taffy, according to her, although she admitted hers hasn't always been equally satisfactory, even if she cooked it to the right temperature.
Armed with the ingredients, and assisted by Arlyn and Matthew who measured and combined the ingredients and hovered over the taffy kettles while I supervised the learning center and the typing class and the boys in the kitchen, I kept checking the temperature of the bubbling mixture after stirring was no longer needed. It wouldn't go over 210 degrees. Then, on one of my walk-by temperature checks, I gasped "This taffy looks done." It was still at 210, but I pulled it off the burner anyway. It was then I saw that the bottom of the thermometer barely reached into the taffy at all. The kettle was too big, and the contents too low in volume.
I hurriedly did the less precise candy done-ness test of drizzling a little of the stuff into a cup of cold water. It formed a pliable ball, and Steven, who was close by, helped me by tipping up each of the kettles in turn while I scraped taffy into pie pans to cool. We called in the troops and they paired off according to the random teams Mr. Schrock had arranged and started pulling taffy. While it was harder work than if it hadn't been cooked quite as long, everyone eventually got a nicely whitened taffy rope that they then twisted and laid out on the counter to harden. After it was snipped into pieces, everyone got a pile to take home. Nibbling on taffy and munching on popcorn accompanied the process also. We dubbed it a success and relished the melt-in-your-mouth goodness of homemade taffy. Fortunately, no hand lotion or soapy taste marred the flavor (thanks perhaps to admonitions regarding this).
I approached the taffy-making project this year with more than the normal amount of trepidation. I simply didn't know how to insure success, and I knew another bad experience with taffy would probably derail the tradition for good. My research turned up recommended cooking temperatures ranging from 248 degrees to 290 degrees. How confusing. I prayed that God would help us know when it was done, and, after I talked to Verna, decided to aim for 245 to 250 degrees. As it turned out, the thermometer didn't help us at all and I have no idea what the temperature was when we quit cooking it. I give God all the credit for providing the hunch that prompted me to pull it off the burner when it "looked" right. It certainly wasn't scientific.
Valley Taffy has almost no redeeming nutrients, but savoring its sublime flavor once a year is a "vice" I have no intention of giving up just now. If God blesses it, and good memories accompany its production, why should I not relish it?
Long live the Pilgrim High School winter semester-end taffy tradition.
I had done a good bit of research online earlier to make sure I knew exactly how to do this right. I also got the name of a local Amish woman who is an experienced taffy maker. 245 degrees is the right temperature for properly cooked taffy, according to her, although she admitted hers hasn't always been equally satisfactory, even if she cooked it to the right temperature.
Armed with the ingredients, and assisted by Arlyn and Matthew who measured and combined the ingredients and hovered over the taffy kettles while I supervised the learning center and the typing class and the boys in the kitchen, I kept checking the temperature of the bubbling mixture after stirring was no longer needed. It wouldn't go over 210 degrees. Then, on one of my walk-by temperature checks, I gasped "This taffy looks done." It was still at 210, but I pulled it off the burner anyway. It was then I saw that the bottom of the thermometer barely reached into the taffy at all. The kettle was too big, and the contents too low in volume.
I hurriedly did the less precise candy done-ness test of drizzling a little of the stuff into a cup of cold water. It formed a pliable ball, and Steven, who was close by, helped me by tipping up each of the kettles in turn while I scraped taffy into pie pans to cool. We called in the troops and they paired off according to the random teams Mr. Schrock had arranged and started pulling taffy. While it was harder work than if it hadn't been cooked quite as long, everyone eventually got a nicely whitened taffy rope that they then twisted and laid out on the counter to harden. After it was snipped into pieces, everyone got a pile to take home. Nibbling on taffy and munching on popcorn accompanied the process also. We dubbed it a success and relished the melt-in-your-mouth goodness of homemade taffy. Fortunately, no hand lotion or soapy taste marred the flavor (thanks perhaps to admonitions regarding this).
I approached the taffy-making project this year with more than the normal amount of trepidation. I simply didn't know how to insure success, and I knew another bad experience with taffy would probably derail the tradition for good. My research turned up recommended cooking temperatures ranging from 248 degrees to 290 degrees. How confusing. I prayed that God would help us know when it was done, and, after I talked to Verna, decided to aim for 245 to 250 degrees. As it turned out, the thermometer didn't help us at all and I have no idea what the temperature was when we quit cooking it. I give God all the credit for providing the hunch that prompted me to pull it off the burner when it "looked" right. It certainly wasn't scientific.
Valley Taffy has almost no redeeming nutrients, but savoring its sublime flavor once a year is a "vice" I have no intention of giving up just now. If God blesses it, and good memories accompany its production, why should I not relish it?
Long live the Pilgrim High School winter semester-end taffy tradition.
posted by Mrs. I at
8:54 PM
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