How to make peppermints and barley sugars the old-fashioned way

NZ Woman's Weekly 28/3/2012

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Wendyl Nissen

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1	Egg, white only
250 g	Icing sugar
150 g	Caster sugar
1 tsp	Essence, (Pepperment essential oil)

Old-fashioned granny peppermints: Fold the egg white into the icing sugar until stiff, then add the caster sugar and the peppermint.
You should get a stiff paste – add more sugar until you do.
Roll into little balls and leave overnight to set.
Barley Sugars: . Put the barley, lemon rind and water in a pot. Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer for two hours. Set aside to cool.
Tip the mixture into a sieve lined with some muslin or fine cloth. Measure out 600ml of the strained liquid and put it into another saucepan.
Add the sugar to the barley liquid and put on a low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil but do not stir.
When it starts to boil, add the lemon juice and boil the syrup until it reaches what is called the “soft crack” stage.
This means that when you drop some syrup into cold water it will solidify into threads, which you you can bend before they break.
If they crack, you’ve gone too far and have made brittle toffee, which is still nice – just pour into a pan, then crack with a hammer when set.
Pour the syrup into a wellgreased sponge tin and, when cool enough to handle, use kitchen scissors to cut the mixture into strips about 5cm long.
Hold each strip by the ends and twist to form spirals. Work quickly as you will only be able to do this before the barley sugar sets.
Place on a piece of baking paper to harden. Enjoy!

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