For real success in candy-making, the home confectioner needs a candy thermometer. As is emphasized throughout the volume, accuracy is of the greatest importance in candy-making. Cooking must stop at just the right moment, or the candy is either harmed or actually spoiled. Until the last few years, for the amateur, the only tests to determine the completion of cooking have been known as "thread," "soft ball," "hard ball," "crack" and "hard crack." While the candy-maker has been struggling with these unsatisfactory tests, the candy has kept on cooking, perhaps until it has reached the next stage of temperature, changed texture, and so become unfit for the use for which it was intended.

The professional confectioner has long been able, by the use of a thermometer, to determine just how hot his candy was and to remove it from the heat at exactly the right moment. His thermometer, however, was not only too expensive for the amateur, but also too long to be used except in a large vat. There are now on the market, however, thermometers that the amateur confectioner or small manufacturer can use to advantage. Even when hardware dealers do not keep the thermometers in stock, they can—and will—order them from their jobbers. The instruments, of which there are several makes, are about nine inches long, and sell for from one dollar to two dollars and fifty cents. Most of these instruments register from about eighty degrees to three hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit, although the range which interests candy-makers most is only from two hundred degrees to three hundred and twenty degrees. There are a few facts which the girl confectioner who uses a thermometer should keep in mind.

Buy a thermometer which is guaranteed by its maker. See that the markings are so well defined that they can be read easily. Before use, the thermometer must be regulated to conform to the local altitude. Place the thermometer in a kettle of water, heat, and let it boil for ten minutes. If the mercury marks two hundred and twelve degrees, the thermometer is correct as it is, but if there is a variation of two degrees or more, allowance must be made. If water boils at two hundred and ten degrees, two degrees must be subtracted every time the thermometer is read. Then "soft ball" means two hundred and thirty-six degrees, not two hundred and thirty-eight degrees, as it would had the water boiled at the normal two hundred and twelve degrees, or two hundred and forty degrees, as it would had the water boiled at two hundred and fourteen degrees. Do not think that a variation of even two degrees is too slight to count; absolute accuracy is essential.

For safety in transit, manufacturers often pinch together the case of the instrument so that the scale-piece can not work loose and become broken. A very little tinkering with the copper jacket, however, will be sufficient to free the scale-piece. This must be done, not only so that the thermometer can be cleaned readily, but so that, when the mixture to be tested is shallow, the dial can be pushed out in order that the bulb can be covered by the hot mass. Unless the bulb is covered, the thermometer will not register correctly.

Allow the thermometer to become hot gradually; do not thrust a cold instrument into boiling water. Do not remove the thermometer to read it, as it quickly changes. Read it with the eye on the level. Remember that mixtures which require stirring must be stirred below the thermometer as well as elsewhere. Be sure that the thermometer is clean. Each time after it has been used push the dial out of the copper case and wash both thoroughly. Do not neglect the back of the piece of metal to which the tube is attached. Be particularly careful after mixtures which contain milk or cream. This removable scale is a great convenience.

The amateur candy-maker will be glad to know that sugar and water will not burn until all the moisture is evaporated, and that does not happen until three hundred and fifty degrees is reached. If, however, she is making an unusually small quantity, and the thermometer begins to climb above three hundred degrees—beware! The large quantity, however, will take care of itself because of the moisture it contains.

Below is a table which will enable one to interpret the old stages in terms of degrees. Fortunately most candy thermometers have this information stamped upon their dials.

In the following pages it is assumed that the cook has a thermometer. If she has not, the degrees given may be translated into the old stages and the old tests used. Thus, if the directions read "cook to two hundred and thirty-eight degrees," the confectioner who has no thermometer will stop the cooking when a portion of the mass will "form a 'soft ball' in cold water." If the directions read two hundred and thirty-six degrees, the "soft ball" must be softer; if two hundred and forty degrees, the "soft ball" not so soft. Thus, without the thermometer, the thermometer readings form a scale which makes easier the application of the old tests. Be it noted that the thermometer is no more necessary in vegetable candy-making than in the traditional sort.