Divinity or Ruth complains about America’s favorite mixer

 

Homemade candy can be the best stuff ever, and divinity is no exception. It’s fluffy and delicious and loaded with sugar. What’s not to love? My recipe comes from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup light corn syrup

2 egg whites at room temperature (1 white weighs approximately 1 oz.)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts of choice (I always use walnuts.)

1. In a 2-quart heavy saucepan, combine sugar, water and corn syrup. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until mixture boils. Clip on candy thermometer. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking without stirring until mixture reaches 260 degrees (hardball stage?) then remove mixture from heat.

2. While the syrup rests, beat egg whites till stiff peaks form. If the whites get too dry, add a TBL warm water and mix again. Once the tips stand straight, GRADUALLY pour the hot syrup in a thin stream over the whites, beating on high. Scrape sides occasionally. Try not to hit the beaters or else you’ll get sticky syrup strings all over the side of the mixer and not in the candy.

3. Once the syrup is added, turn the mixer on full blast if it’s not there already. Add the vanilla and food coloring if that’s your thing. The book says to stop beating when “the beaters are lifted and the candy falls in a ribbon that mounds on itself.” I did that the first time I made divinity and ended up with little puddles of white goo. A better marker is when the candy starts to lose its gloss, or when it starts to look like divinity. If you mix it too long you’ll just have a hard time scooping it out of the bowl; the flavor of the candy will not suffer. If the candy starts breaking as it mixes, stop mixing – that was too long. The book says if you over mix you can add a few drops of hot water and keep mixing, but I’ve never tried this.

4. Once you’re done mixing, fold in the chopped nuts in right away. Drop candy in teaspoon sized blobs onto wax paper and let cool. Or (this works better for me, and is more successful if you’ve mixed the candy a little too long) press the candy lightly into a parchment lined 8x8 pan. Let the candy cool before cutting. Keeps tightly covered up to a week (but I bet that won’t be a problem.)

So that’s the recipe. The rest of this post is me complaining about my mixer. So you can stop here if you like.

I have a KitchenAid mixer. It’s Imperial Red. It’s the Professional HD model – super nice with a bowl-lift lever. I got it as a present and was very excited to get it. I registered for the bottom of the line model when I got married and didn’t get it, and Dana and I decided not to use our gift cards to buy one; it was just too expensive. So when someone gave us this one (never been used), I was pretty ecstatic. All my mixer needs and wants met and exceeded!

But I have noticed this flaw and it has started to bother me: the mixer does not mix the matter directly below the beater. This can be remedied if you stop the mixer every so often and scoop up the stuff that has collected, unmixed, down there. But the design of the mixer and the size of the beater makes it awkward and time consuming to do so. Not only that, but I know there are mixers out there that do not have this problem; I shouldn’t have to stop a mixer to help it by stirring. Stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl I understand (but this, too, is tricky with this mixer).

Also, if there is so little in the bowl that the beater can’t reach it, you’re out of luck. For example, two egg whites are not very much liquid. The whisk does not reach them. So, I have to put the whites in my mixer bowl and then beat them to stiff peaks with my hand mixer. Only then can I put the bowl on the mixer and use it as I pour the syrup in. However, since I have to avoid the beater with the syrup, I end up pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl. In and of itself, not a problem, but inevitably some of that syrup ends up collecting in the unreachable pool at the bottom of the bowl. Divinity being what it is – time sensitive – I cannot be stopping every 30 seconds to rescue the lost syrup and incorporate it into the mixture. So I end up losing about a quarter cup of syrup in this whole process. It just cools into a solid, sugary rock at the bottom, smooshed against the side of the bowl by the force from the beater as it whirls around. Part of me wonders if I added the syrup sooner, not letting it rest before pouring it over the egg whites, if the result will be better. But I don’t know. I’ll have to try that.

What I can say is that the mixer can work at full speed for the 10 or so minutes in the viscous mixture without batting an eye. The engine is powerful. But wonder if I wouldn’t be happier with a different machine.