MARY’S RECIPE FOR MOLASSES TAFFY

Four tablespoonfuls New Orleans molasses, 9 tablespoonfuls sugar, 3 tablespoonfuls water, 2 teaspoonfuls butter, 1 teaspoonful vanilla.  Boil all together until it becomes brittle when a small quantity is dropped in water.  Pour the mixture into buttered pans and when cool enough to handle, pull with the hands until a light creamy yellow shade.  Pull into long, thin strips, cut into small pieces with scissors.  This taffy is fine if boiled a long enough time to become crisp and brittle, and you will be surprised at the quantity this small amount of sugar and molasses will make.

RECIPE FOR MAKING HARD SOAP WITHOUT BOILING

To make hard soap without boiling, empty a can of “Lewis Perfumed Lye” (or any other good, reliable brand of lye) into a stone jar with 1 tablespoonful powdered borax.  Add 2-1/2 pints of cold water to the lye.  Stir until dissolved.  Be very careful not to allow any of the lye to touch hands or face.  Wear old gloves when emptying can and stirring lye.  Stand the dissolved lye in a cool place.  The tin cans containing the fat to be used for soap (which have accumulated, been tried out, strained, and put in empty tin cans at different times) should be placed in the oven of range for a few minutes.  When warm they may be turned out readily into a large stew-pan.  Put over fire and when all has dissolved and melted, strain through cheese-cloth bag into an agate dish pan.  When weighed you should 5-1/2 pounds of clear fat.  A recipe telling exact quantity of fat and lye usually comes with can of lye.  When temperature of fat is 120 degrees by your thermometer (luke-warm), the lye should have been allowed to stand about 1 hour from the time it was dissolved.  It should then be the right temperature to mix with strained, luke-warm fat or grease not over 80 degrees by thermometer.  Now slowly pour the dissolved lye over the fat (a half cup of ammonia added improves soap), stir together until lye and grease are thoroughly incorporated, and the mixture drops from the stirrer like honey.  The soap may be scented by adding a few drops of oil of cloves, if liked.  Stir the mixture with a small wooden paddle or stick.  Stir slowly from 5 to 10 minutes, not longer, or the lye and fat may separate.  Pour all into a large agate dish pan lined with a piece of clean muslin.  Throw an old piece of carpet over the top and stand near the range until evening, when, if made early in the morning, a solid cake of soap, weighing 8-1/2 pounds, may be turned out on a bake-board (previously covered with brown paper) and cut into 20 pieces of good hard soap.  Lay the pieces of soap in a basket, cover to protect from dust, and stand in a warm room to dry thoroughly before using.  Soap made according to these directions should be solid and almost as white as ivory if the fat used has not been scorched.