Powdered sugar

“ Chewing Candy.—Place 20 pounds of sugar in a copper pan, add 20 pounds of glucose, and enough water to easily dissolve the sugar. Set on the fire or cook in the steam pan in 2 quarts of water. Have a pound of egg albumen soaked in 2 quarts of water. Beat this like eggs into a very stiff froth, add gradually the sugar and glucose; when well beaten up, add 5 pounds of powdered sugar, and beat at very little heat either in the steam beater or on a pan of boiling water until light, and does not stick to the back of the hand, flavor with vanilla, and put in trays dusted with fine sugar. ”

“ Put one quart of rum and three pounds powdered sugar in a large jar which has an air-tight cover or cork. Leave for a week. Stir well. Put into the jar three pounds of strawberries and three pounds more sugar. Stir occasionally. After another week add three pounds raspberries and three pounds sugar. Stir every day. Again, after an interval, add apricots, peaches, plums, etc., always with an equal quantity of sugar. The jar must be kept air-tight and should be kept in a cool dry place. When it is full, put it away for several weeks. Then mix thoroughly and serve with whipped cream. ”

“ Cane sugar is obtained from sugar cane, beets, and the palm and sugar-maple trees. Sugar cane is a grass supposed to be native to Southern Asia, but now grown throughout the tropics, a large amount coming from Cuba and Louisiana; it is the commonest of all, and in all cases the manufacture is essentially the same. The products of manufacture are: molasses, syrup, brown sugar, loaf, cut, granulated, powdered, and confectioners’ sugar. Brown sugar is cheapest, but is not so pure or sweet as white 7grades ”

“ Weigh each pine-apple, balancing the other scale with an equal weight of the best double-refined sugar, finely powdered, at home. The white sugar, that is sold ready-powdered, is generally so adulterated with finely pulverized starch, as to have very little strength or sweetness, and is, therefore, unfit for sweetmeats, as, when made with it, they will not keep. ”

“ To make this take 2 lbs. of finely powdered icing sugar (first having an earthenware pan made warm) , put in six fresh whites of eggs, and immediately whisk them, and as quickly as possible, until quite stiff; then add the sugar by degrees, whisking all the time. As soon as it appears light cease whisking, and beat it well with the spatter until you have put in all the sugar. A little tartaric acid or lemon-juice may be added towards the end of the mixing. To know when it is sufficiently beaten, take up a little on the spatter and let it drop into the basin again. ”

“ Iced champagne was poured out. Emma shivered all over as she felt it cold in her mouth. She had never seen pomegranates nor tasted pine-apples. The powdered sugar even seemed to her whiter and finer than elsewhere. ”

“ with powdered sugar, and a highly geological home-made cake. ”

“ The methods of refining sugar have been so perfected within the last few years that it is safe to say that few food substances in commercial use are so near to being chemically pure as granulated sugars of good grade. No less an authority than Blythe says, "Loaf sugar is, as a rule, chemically pure. It is probably, indeed, the purest of all substances in commerce, and a large quantity may be burnt up without obtaining a trace of nitrogen and without leaving any residue. The only sugar that may be impure are the raw sugars." ”

“ The clarification of the juice forms one of the most important operations in sugar manufacture, since the higher the purity of the juice to be concentrated, the greater the percentage of sucrose that will crystallize, and the easier it will be to make a marketable sugar. If a high-grade sugar, or even yellow clarified sugar is to be made, this work should receive still greater attention. ”

“ On other estates the second sugars, or sugars produced from boiling molasses alone, are not purged to dryness, but when sufficiently separated from their mother-liquor are mixed with the defecated juice, thereby increasing its saccharine richness, and after being converted into syrup in the usual manner are treated in the vacuum pan as first sugars, which in fact they really are. ”

“ The water is then evaporated in vacuum-pans, so as to boil at about 74 degrees and to prevent conversion into grape sugar. By this process much glucose or syrup is formed, which is separated from the crystalline sucrose by rapidly revolving centrifugal machines. Great quantities of sucrose are used for food by all civilized nations. A single refinery in New York purifies 2,000,000 pounds per day.
321. Glucose, or invert sugar, the principal member of the second class, consists of two distinct kinds of sugar, —dextrose and levulose. These differ in certain properties, but have the same symbol. ”

“ Glucose sugars melt at one hundred and five degrees, 19C., while cane sugars melt only when heated to one hundred and thirty-seven degrees, C. Raw sugars are no longer used. They should be refined to free them from the repulsive sugar mite and other impurities. The best sugar is always the most economical.
The Best Grades of Family Sugar are the cut loaf, cubes and crushed. ”

“ The sugar produced, though abounding in saccharine matter, is generally coarse in appearance, and of a bad colour, being merely clayed, in order to free it from the molasses: the art of refining, though well understood, is seldom, or never, carried beyond the first stage of the process, there being no demand in the market for double-refined sugar. ”

“ Take 6 lb. pounded sugar and put it into a sugar boiler—an untinned copper vessel—with 1 qt. water. Beat up the whites of 3 eggs with 1 pint water, and add this to the rest. Set the pan on the fire, and keep stirring the sugar; when it rises add a little cold water, and repeat this every time the sugar rises until 1 pint water has been so expended, and by that time the sugar will no longer rise, and a dark scum will have gathered on the top. Remove the scum carefully, and strain the syrup through a wetted napkin. ”

“ Invert sugar is so called because the mixture of glucose and fructose which forms the “invert” is laevo-rotatory, whereas cane sugar is dextro-rotatory to the plane of polarized light. The preparation of invert sugar by the acid process consists in treating the cane sugar in solution with a little mineral acid, removing the excess of the latter by means of chalk, and concentrating to a thick syrup. ”

“ Inorganic matter is determined by incineration, farina by the iodine test, water by drying at 210 deg., and molasses by getting rid of it by re-crystalization from alcohol, as also by the color and moisture of the article.
The natural impurities of sugar are gum and tannin; gum is detected by giving a white precipitate with diacetate of lead, and [Pg 137] tannin by giving a black coloration or precipitate with persulphate of iron.
An experienced sugar dealer easily judges of the value of sugar by the taste, smell, specific gravity, moisture and general appearance. ”

“ There is no mistake more common than to suppose that any half-ripe or over-ripe fruit is good enough for jam.
Sugar for Preserving.—Of the various kinds of sugar in common use, the white refined lump is generally sold for preserving, and, indeed, is the only kind admissible for the more delicate kinds of preserves. Coarse brown sugar conceals the flavour of any fruit, and the whiter moist sugar has little sweetening power. ”

“ Boil the molasses, skim it, throw in the barberries, and simmer them till they are soft. If you wish to lay by a few for sickness, preserve them in sugar by the same rule as other preserves. Melt the sugar, skim it, throw in the barberries; when done soft, take them out, and throw in others.
A pound of sugar to a pound of fruit is the rule for all preserves. The sugar should be melted over a fire moderate enough not to scorch it. When melted, it should be skimmed clean, and the fruit dropped in to simmer till it is soft. ”

“ Raw sugar is refined by redissolving it in water, adding to the solution albumen, under the form of serum of blood or white of egg, and, sometimes, a little lime-water, and heating the whole to the boiling-point; the impurities are then removed by careful skimming, and the syrup is decoloured by filtration through recently burnt animal charcoal; the clear decolorised syrup is next evaporated to the crystallising-point in vacuo, and at once transferred into conical earthern moulds, where it solidifies, after some time, to a confusedly crystallised mass ”

“ When crushed between rolls it yields 65 per cent. of its weight as juice, and 18 per cent. of this juice is sugar. It is concentrated by evaporation at a low temperature, the crystallized portion being known as “raw” or brown sugar, which is subsequently refined, while the uncrystallized portion forms molasses.
FIG. 173.—VACUUM PAN FOR EVAPORATING THE SYRUP TO PRODUCE SUGAR.
In the process of refining, 2 or 3 parts of raw sugar, with one of water containing a little lime, ground bone black, and the serum of bullocks’ blood, is heated by the passage of steam through it. ”

“ There are many varieties of the sugar cane which contain from twelve to twenty per cent. of sugar; these are cut, crushed, and the juice boiled down and clarified with lime, etc.; the sugar crystallizes and leaves the molasses. The sugar beet contains from 18seven to thirteen per cent. of sugar, which, when raw, is unpleasant, but when refined is identical with cane sugar. The fact that the molasses of the sugar beet, although colorless, is very disagreeable, has retarded the beet sugar manufacture, but it is a great and growing industry. The sap of the sugar maple contains about two per cent. ”

“ If a very large firm grain like sugar-candy is required the syrup when first brought into the pan must be of low density, say 20° to 21° Beaumé, but if a smaller grain be wanted it can easily be obtained from syrup of 27° to 28° Beaumé. On some plantations making sugar for particular markets and use in refineries it is the custom to make only one class of sugar, by boiling the molasses produced by the purging of one strike with the sugar in the next strike. ”

“ If instead of at once saturating the diluted acid with chalk, we boil it for four or five hours, the dextrin is entirely converted into grape sugar (glucose) , which, by the addition of chalk and filtration, as before, and evaporation at a gentle heat to the consistence of a syrup, will, after repose for a few days, furnish a concrete mass of crystallised sugar. Cotton, linen, or unsized paper, thus treated, yield fully their own weight of gum and one-sixth of their weight of grape sugar. ”

“ If you wish your sweetmeats to look bright and clear, use only the very best loaf-sugar. Fruit may be preserved for family use and for common purposes, in sugar of inferior quality, but it will never have a good appearance, and it is also more liable to spoil.
If too small a proportion of sugar is allowed to the fruit, it will certainly not keep well. When this experiment is tried it is generally found to be false economy; as sweetmeats, when they begin to spoil, can only be recovered and made eatable by boiling them over again with additional sugar ”

“ All unripe fruit must be rendered perfectly tender by gentle scalding, before it is put into syrup, or it will not imbibe the sugar; and the syrup must be thin when it is first added to it, and be thickened afterwards by frequent boiling, or with sugar added, or the fruit will shrivel instead of becoming plump and clear. A pound of sugar boiled for ten minutes in a pint of water will make a very light syrup, but it will gradually thicken if rapidly boiled in an uncovered pan. ”

“ Be careful that the syrup does not run too fast and wet them too much, but so that it dries as soon as dropped, which causes them to appear rough. If one cot full of sugar is not enough, put in more until they are the required size. When one lot is finished put in sieves to dry, and proceed to another; but do not let them lie in the pan after you have finished shaking them. They will be whiter and better if partly pearled one day and finished the next. Use the best clarified sugar to finish them.
Clove Comfits.—Flavor sugar gum paste with the oil of cloves, and mold it in the form of cloves. ”

“ The scum should always be reserved when charcoal or black is not used, to mix with the articles of an inferior quality.
The best refined loaf sugar should be white, dry, fine, of a brilliant sparkling appearance, when broken, and as close in texture as possible. The best sort of brown has a bright, sparkling, and gravelly look. East India sugars appear finer, but do not contain so much saccharine matter, yet they are much used for manufacturing the best sort of common sweetmeats, when clarified, instead of loaf sugar. ”

“ Take a lemon or an orange, grate the rind with a tin grater, put the powder in a saucer, squeeze the juice of the fruit over it, mix it well together with a spoon, then boil some sugar very high, because what you put in it is a liquor, since it is the juice and the grating of the fruit mixt together lowers the sugar, which requires the sugar to be boiled a little higher for this sort of conserve than for the others: when your sugar is boiled to the proper height mix it in your composition, and proceed on just the same as directed for the other conserves. ”

“ Finally, boiling water is admitted and forces out all the last liquor, and then continues to run and wash out the sweets until only a trace remains. This weak solution, called “sweet water,” is sometimes used for melting the raw sugar, or it is evaporated in a multiple-effect apparatus to 27° Beaumé density, passed through the char filter, and cooked in the vacuum pan like the other liquors. After the sweets have come away, cold water is passed through the char until no trace of lime or sulphate of lime is found in it ”