A spoonful of sugar...

So after my victory over Everton toffee, I was ready for a new challenge. However, in a cheeky break from teacher training today I started looking up the history of this devishly sugary treat. I found a charming story of a Mary Cooper in 1810 Liverpool, whose home made Everton toffee reached national fame - someone even wrote the following poem: 

Everton Toffee! Ever dear to lass and lad:
More certain cure than balm of Gilead.
Come friends, come buy – your pennies give.
While you keep sucking you’ll be sure to live!

Sure to live? A shortcut to the dentist more like. However, even before her there was a Molly Bushell who used her doctors recipe to make extra money from home. So this suggests to me that the toffee recipe must have originally been used for medicinal purposes. Low and behold, who should I notice has a recipe for 'Butterscotch Cough Sweets'? Mrs Beeton (of course, was there anything this woman wasn't advising desperate housewives of the 1800's about?) 

So naturally, upon returning home from work I have rolled up my sleeves and am, under Mrs B's instructions, following the Everton Toffee recipe but substituting white sugar for brown and adding in powdered ginger. As I stir, I get that beautiful feeling that I am bringing life to something out of history as I did with the hot chocolate. I imagine strict buxom Governess' mixing these sweets up for poorly children - Nanny McPhee style. Even as I pour out the sweets into moulds I actually see myself in the back room of my very own Victorian sweet shop - 'Come friends, come buy - your pennies give, while you keep sucking you'll be sure to live"