The recipes in this book are of the old-fashioned sort—simple, classic recipes that don’t require fancy equipment or even any special molds. You should be able to make anything you see here with the tools you already have in your kitchen. There are a few tools that will make some of these recipes much easier, though. If you don’t have them, they may be worth investing in.
Double Boiler
Because chocolate is very sensitive and only likes to be melted very slowly, double boilers are a helpful tool. If you don’t have one and don’t feel like getting one, you can devise your own by placing a heatproof glass bowl over the top of a saucepan with a little water in the bottom. Just make sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.
Candy Thermometer
You don’t absolutely have to have a candy thermometer to succeed in candy-making, but for about $10 you can take most of the guesswork out of the process. For hard candies, taffy, toffee, and many of the other recipes in this book, you’ll need to heat sugar mixtures to a fairly specific temperature to achieve the desired consistency in your final product. Your grandmother may have used the hard ball/soft ball method to determine candy temperatures without a thermometer, and certainly you can, too (see chart on page xxi). But you could also buy a cheap thermometer and save yourself the hassle of sticky syrup dripped all over your countertop and the stress of guesstimating the relative density of a ball of liquefied sugar.
Food Processor
Though more of an investment than a candy thermometer, a food processor is also good for many more kitchen purposes. Once you own one you’ll find yourself using it for almost anything you prepare, from pie dough to chopped salads to homemade nut butters. In terms of candy, it’s wonderful for recipes that call for chopped fruit or nuts. If you don’t have one you can, of course, use a knife to chop dried fruits. For nuts, you can put them in a plastic bag and run a rolling pin over the bag to crush the nuts into small pieces.
Parchment Paper vs. Waxed Paper
Parchment paper is coated with silicone, whereas waxed paper is coated with wax (duh). When waxed paper gets hot, the wax melts and can seep into your food. Thus, I recommend using parchment paper instead of waxed paper for most recipes. Try to find unbleached parchment paper (available at many health food stores, or see online resources on page 111), since the bleach used in the white parchment paper is mildly toxic. Okay, so it’s not going to kill you . . . probably, at least right away . . . but you might as well be as healthy as you can be (while eating candy)!