I Want Candy: Divinity Fudge

In every old time Point recipe box, written on a well-worn scrap of paper or index card, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a recipe for divinity fudge.

You cannot call yourself a candy maker without knowing how to master this.

I do not call myself a candy maker.

The precision, the patience, the MATH and SCIENCE expertise, you need to make these wonderful candies come out properly just doesn’t fit in with my “dash of this, dash of that, hey-whaddya-say-we-try this” approach to cooking.

Divinity fudge, in my opinion, like peanut butter fudge, is not really “fudge” at all -- – there is no chocolate in it. It is boiled corn syrup and egg whites with pecans and a little vanilla. It is in fact divine when it comes out – and a hot mess – literally - when it does not.

To achieve a high rate of success, you should make it on a bright clear dry day with low humidity.

Therein lies the problem.

On average, there are only three bright, clear, humidity-free days per year in South Mississippi --and I am exaggerating only slightly. I don’t know about you, but when those three days come along, I have better things to do than stand over a double-boiler, candy thermometer in hand.
Come to think of it, perhaps it is this very challenge that makes this candy so beloved in our climes.

I bet home cooks in Arizona, where they could probably make divinity every day if they felt like it, don’t.

Ergo, the thrill, the wonder of that rare perfect batch of divinity can only be savored completely because of the odds beaten to achieve it. It’s candy as Russian roulette.

If you are a gambler -- and we got more than a few of those on the Point -- go for it. You might want to consult a Farmer’s Almanac first. Or better yet just do as the ladies on the Point always did, and call on a Higher Power. Sometimes to make perfect divinity, you just need Divine intervention.

DIVINITY FUDGE

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup white Karo syrup
1 cup pecans
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg white
1/2 cup water
Salt

Beat egg white with a dash of salt until stiff peaks form. Set aside. Cook sugar, Karo syrup and water over medium heat until the mixture forms a soft ball when dropped in a cup of cold water. Slowly add half of syrup mixture to the egg whites and beat again. at high speed until stiff. Return rest of syrup mixture to the stove and continue cooking until the mixture spins a thread in cold water. Add to syrup/egg white mixture. Add vanilla and nuts and beat until mixture holds shape when dropped by spoonful onto wax paper.

NOTE: Perfect divinity fudge is white and frothy, like a meringue or the white stucco on a Hollywood Spanish bungalow (there was such a house on the Point we used to call the Divinity Fudge House). You often see divinity tinted bright red or green for Christmas or any number of godawful colors like fuchsia and chartreuse at weddings. Please resist the urge to match a color scheme.