2002.125.008 - Youngers Mint recipe signed by Charlie Younger, 1929.
Mints
8 pounds Sugar
1 teaspoon Salt
1 ounce Syrup
2 ½ pints Boiling Water
When candy starts boiling, put in 1 ounce Butter. When cooks to 240° put in 2 ounces more.
Cook to 268° in cold weather and about 274° in hot weather.
Pour on slab and cool - pull & cut. Flavor 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 teaspoon mint oil or less mint if too strong.
Too much butter in the Younger family taffy recipe resulted in the famous "melt in your mouth" Younger's mints. Started as a small operation in the basement of the Younger home in 1926, the business soon grew to the point where it was necessary to open a retail store in the original McKee building on Main Street. Not long afterwards the store moved to a building on 104th Avenue equipped with a kitchen for making the candy. In search of a better retail location, the business moved to Kirkland in 1938, as it was a larger town at that time. The candy was again made in the Younger home. In the meantime the candies were being shipped all over the world and a local reputation had been established. With the rationing of sugar during World War II the business was sold to the Anderson family in 1947.
2002.125.004 - Addie Hurley behind counter in Charley Younger's Candy Shop, Kirkland. Circa 1942.
Resources
Culinary History of a Pacific Northwest Town: Bellevue, Washington by Suzanne Knauss.
Eastside Heritage Center Archives
