Christmas Sweets!

Making Christmas candy used to be as much a part of Christmas as Santa and the elves. Candy making was a social event in many communities and churches where people gathered to visit and make sweet confections for their families and friends.

Candy making is practically a lost art, since the Bluegrass has so many great chocolate factories, such as Ruth Hunt Candies, Rebecca-Ruth, Sharp’s and Old Kentucky Chocolates.

An old-fashioned candy that a few people still make is potato candy. A typical recipe calls for one small baked potato mashed and mixed with confectioners’ sugar. “The trick is to add enough — but not too much – sugar,” said Mark Sohn, author of Mountain Country Cooking.

The amount of sugar depends on the amount of water in the potato. New potatoes, boiled potatoes, and leftover mashed potatoes have more water than old baked potatoes. Add sugar until you can roll the candy, and it does not stick to the surface.

Here’s a recipe from Mountain Country Cooking.

Potato candy

1⁄2 cup warm cooked potato

4 to 6 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

1 cup peanut butter

Mash the cooked potato until it is smooth and the lumps are gone. Be careful, if you have lumps now, you will have lumps later.

Measure out 1⁄2 cup mashed potato. In a mixing bowl, stir 1 cup of the sugar into the potato. Continue to add sugar, stirring and then kneading the potato and sugar as you would bread dough. Add sugar until the mixture resembles pie dough, dry enough not to stick to your hands, but wet enough to roll out. If you add too little sugar, the dough will stick to the rolling surface; dust with confectioners’ sugar. If you add too much sugar, the “dough” gets hard or brittle and cracks; add 1 teaspoon of water.

Between sheets of waxed paper or on a surface dusted with confectioners’ sugar, roll the candy to a 1⁄8-inch thickness. Try to roll the candy into a rectangle, 12- by 16-inches in size. To square up the rectangle, cut, moisten, and patch as needed. With a spatula, spread the peanut butter evenly over the candy.

From the long edge, roll as you would a jelly roll. Cut the log in half, wrap with plastic wrap, and chill until firm, several hours or overnight. Serve as a roll, slicing off pieces as you eat them, or slice roll into 3⁄4-inch pieces. If you slice the pieces, keep them covered. If you smash the pieces a little as you cut them, reshape the pieces to make them round. Makes 20 pieces.

Note: Instead of peanut butter, spread roll with a chocolate ganache, or melted chocolate.