Back before I started working for IBM in 1957, I worked for a Confectionery company in Burlington down on King Street. The old candymaker had been there since he was 15 years old. His name was Frank Delorme. He was the father of Ken Delorme that used to live here in Fairfax. The company made some great Vermont Candy. There were Peanut Butter Kisses, Maple Kisses, Maple Peanut Butter Ribbon Candy, Peanut Brittle, Maple Sugar Candy, wintergreen mints and peppermint mints.
In they early years, they did make their own chocolates, but when I worked there, they bought their chocolates in bulk and repackaged them in fancy boxes.
This past weekend, my daughter who lives in Hampton, NH brought up some peanut brittle, chocolates and kettle corn made by a candy company down there that is just around the corner from her. It brought back some memories for me of the old days and the way they made their candy at Vermont Confectionery. They had marble slabs that they poured our the peanut brittle on to cool before they broke it up in pieces. They had rubber molds that they poured the maple surgar in, the had a machine that would cut and wrap the kisses as a woman pulled the taffy filled with peanut putter and fed it into the machine. Christmas ribbon candy was made by feeding warm taffy into a chute and through a couple of wheels with cogs. I suspect that a lot of this equipment was created by the candy maker to make his job easier.
If anybody knows of a confectionery company that makes something besides chocolates here in Northern Vermont, would love to drop in and observe them making candy in today's world.
I did check the Internet and they do have a recipe for making peanut brittle. They don't specify the type of peanuts to use, but we used to use raw spanish peanuts. Also, the peanut brittle that my daughter brought was at just the right thickness to be able to eat easily. If it is too thick then definitely not as good. You can find the recipe if you click on the following link:
There is also a video of a guy on the web making it:
