Christmas Magic: Bees Wax Candles and Sugar Plums

The Christmas preparations continue at a good clip.  On the weekend I dipped candles and made two versions of sugar plums.

Making Bees Wax Candles 

I am passionately fond of candles, especially real bees wax candles.  These are quite expensive, which is only right, considering the amount of work involved by millions of subjugated insects.  I assume vegetarians don’t approve of them, given the exploitative nature of their origin, but I am lamentably unscrupulous when it comes to plundering Nature’s renewable resources.

But since my unscruples aren’t matched by my resources, I buy the wax in large amounts and dip my own candles.  Like most of the ancient crafts it is not difficult, just time consuming.  I spent six hour making 24 candles!  OK, so I had several breaks, but it is still a long time.  I consider it time well spent, nevertheless.  I spend so much time working with my head and creating ephemeralia that I always welcome an opportunity to do something which results in actual material things.  That’s why cooking, baking, gardening, and knitting make up such a large part of my life.

Anyway.  If you want to follow in my footsteps, this is what you do.  Get a tall slim cooking pot – I have one intended to boil asparagus.  I can boil the asparagus just as easily laying down as standing up, so have requisitioned it for my candle-making.  Obviously the bigger the pot you are using for your dipping the more wax you need!  I make a lot of candles, so having a pot which holds two litres of wax is no problem.  When I am finished I just let the wax dry in the pot and store it away until the next time.  Then I melt it on the stove, add more wax to top it up, and start dipping again. 

Put pot on stove on a very low flame and fill with wax.  While the wax melts do something else, because it will take ages – one hour in my case.  Make sure the pot is as full as you want your candles to be long, and top it up as the level sinks.  Get a long thick pole or stick, and lay the two ends so that you can hang the candles over the pole – I rest one end on the stove and the other on a work surface.  Make sure the stick is a thick one - if it is too thin the ends of your candles may touch and stick together!

Cut the wick you intend to coat with wax into strips a bit more than twice as long as the candles you want – you will create one candle on each end.  Cut a goodish many – you don’t want to go to all this trouble for half a dozen candles.

When the wax in your pot is completely melted, take hold of a wick string and, holding it in the middle, dip the two ends into the wax, and pull it out quickly.  Hang over the pole to dry.  Do it to the next piece of wick, etc etc.  When you finished the last wick, go back to the first and repeat the dipping.  Every time you dip, a layer of wax is added to the wick, and slowly building up the candle.  You will be surprised how often you have to do this before you have a decent sized candle!

Take care not to leave the candle in the melted wax longer that a split second, because otherwise the wax you put onto the wick in previous dippings will melt off again and your candle will shrink!  It is easy to leave just the bottom part of the candle too long in the melted wax and end up with candles which are thicker in the middle than on the bottom, so take care!

When the candles are as thick around as you want them leave them hanging overnight on the pole so they can dry completely, and then they are ready for use. 

Making Sugar Plums

Who hasn’t read the famous poem by Henry Livingston, The Night Before Christmas,

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,       etc etc?

And who never wondered what these Sugar Plums were which the children were dreaming of?  Why weren’t they dreaming about marzipan, or sugared almonds, or chocolate?  Why this obsession with plums?

Our ancestors were confusing about plums.  There are any number of compound plum-words which refer to things which have nothing whatever to do with the purple fruit.  Plum-pudding for example contains no plums, nor does plum cake, and don’t even start me on a ‘plumy’ accent!  The word plum was used in many different ways over the years.  It often denoted raisins and other dried fruit, and was employed as a catch all term for ‘sugar & spice and all things nice’ – which explains why children were dreaming of them.  They weren’t dreaming of plums at all, but of all sorts of nice sweet fruity delicious things that could be found in a Christmas stocking.

That said, Sugar Plums did exist in their own right!  Plums were dipped in sugar and dried in a slow oven.  Periodically they were taken out and re-dipped in sugar, until they were ‘sugar-dried’.  I make them sometimes, and it takes a long time.  The are quite delicious.  You can also make Sugar Plums by candying them, like other fruit (orange slices, pineapple, green walnuts, etc).  Again, it takes a long time.

 

Lastly, there are Sugar Plums which are a sort of fruit & nut truffle, and these are the very best of all – I would certainly dream of them if I was a child!  They are a delicious concoction of all things that make Christmas special.  If you are looking for a recipe I must disappoint you, because I just throw them together, and each time the result is different.  But this is what you can do to create your own Sugar Plums.

Assemble as many different dried fruit as you can lay your hands on, like apricots and wineberries and dates and figs, and mix them with nuts like hazelnuts and walnuts and almonds and pecans.  I also throw in some candied citrus fruit peel, because I have lots of it.  Aim for a half nuts half fruit mixture.  Make sure there are no stones or pits in the fruits.  Run the lot through a food processor/grinder.  The result should be a sticky mess with small pieces.  Sprinkle nice Christmassy spices, like cinnamon and cloves and cardamom, onto the mess.  Melt some butter and pour it over the mess – this will help to bind it together.  If you like dark chocolate, melt some and pour it over the mess.  Toss in some cocoa powder as well.  Got runny honey?  Decant over the mixture.  Feeling alcoholic?  Throw in some liqueur or rum (Amaretto is very good, as is Cointreau).  Now mix all this really really well, and put it in a cold place.

A few hours later, roll mixture into small balls and coat in something to stop them from being too sticky – sugar, crushed nuts, or cocoa powder (mixed with some sugar perhaps).  Put onto cookie tray and in a cool place.  Once thoroughly cooled place in little paper cups and tins.  That’s it.  Very easy, if a bit messy.  Don’t put cheap ingredients into sugar plums, you will taste the difference.  I don’t really expect anyone to dip their own candles or make their own candied peel and Stollen, but do make some sugar plums this year.  They are everything Christmas is and should be, and make great gifts, too!