The holidays are a time for baking and partaking in sugary sweet treats. However during the years of rationing, preparing these goodies was made difficult.

Though rationing ended with the close of World War II in 1945, sugar continued to be rationed through June 1947. Modern Screen provides some holiday candy recipes in the Jan. 1947 issue with substitutes that will still allow for goodies. “Visons of sugar plums’ needn’t remain visions because of sugar scarcity! Other sweeteners make equally delicious desserts,” the magazine touts.

These recipes are delicious enough for young stars like Margaret O’Brien (who this time, doesn’t claim to have prepared the candy, but the magazine says she would enjoy them.

These recipes include:

Krispie Drops

My review:
We will star this review on a high note: this is the best of the bunch of recipes. It’s honestly delicious and I wish this made even more. It’s essentially just chocolatey clusters of Rice Krispy cereal. What more could you ask for? They were also very easy to make. I used a double boiler to melt the chocolate and butter and then mixed it together.

Spiced Nuts 

My review: 
Continuing the high, this is my second favorite of the recipes. This was also probably the easiest of the recipes to make (and one of the few that actually has sugar). You simply mixed the spices, combined the pecans with egg whites (so the spices would stick), mixed the spices with the nuts and eggs and baked it! Very easy and also delicious.

Cocoa Fruit Fudge

My review
I generally just love plain, chocolate fudge. While candied fruit isn’t usually my cup of tea, this fudge is pretty good. I used the Old English Holiday Fruit mix by Paradise and also used some pecans. This recipe did offer a few problems. For some reason, the fudge was very lumpy while mixing. I’m not sure if it was the cocoa powder or what. After the fudge set, it was also very soft. I put the cut fudge in the refrigerator, hoping it would become less soft and it didn’t help much. This recipe (with two cups of cocoa) is very chocolatey, so if you aren’t a chocolate fan, this may not be for you.

Raisin Peanut Clusters 

My Review
Now we start on the decline of these recipes, especially as we enter molasses as an ingredient in these sugar-less recipes. I’d say it was easy to make, but the molasses, vinegar, corn syrup took a very long time to boil while on low heat, as the recipe instructs. Once it finally boils, the rest is easy. But it’s a long wait. The candy is fine. The peanuts and raisings make it good, but watch out for any fillings you may have when eating these! They are very sticky and chewy.

Molasses Cocoanut Chews

My review
I love coconut (or cocoanut as they spell it in the magazine), and I thought these would be delicious! But sadly, the only thing you can taste in this recipe is the molasses. I think if this recipe had sugar, it would be pretty good. Sadly, after trying with a few of these, I wasn’t able to finish them.

You can find the full recipes in Modern Screen here. 

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