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Bonbons: Chocolate
CHOCOLATE CREAMS WITH NUT CENTERS Almonds, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, hickory-nuts, peanuts and Brazil nuts can all be used in making centers for chocolate cream candies. The nuts should be first blanched. Put two cupfuls of fondant in a double boiler and melt, add a tea-spoonful of lemon juice, stir over the fire until melted; then take the nut meats, one by one, on a candy dipper or fork and dip into the fondant. Lay on oiled or paraffine paper until cold, then dip into melted chocolate. The fondant may be divided if preferred and flavored with different flavors, and prepared with different colors. Cherry flavored fondant is excellent with almonds. Vanilla goes well with most nuts, and many like peppermint flavor with nuts. Maple flavored fondant is always excellent with nuts. Take equal quantities of chopped walnuts, hickory-nuts and almonds. These should be chopped fine. Take an equal amount of fondant and melt in a double boiler, and stir in the nut meats; flavor with vanilla if the fondant has not already been flavored. When the fondant mixture begins to harden mold into bonbon shape and place on paraffine paper or a sheet of clean tin. When entirely cool coat with chocolate.
Delicious bonbons can be made by grinding up pistachio nuts until fine, and mixing with an equal quantity of pale green or white fondant flavored with pistachio or almond. When cool enough shape in bonbons, and coat with chocolate.
Chop equal quantities of almond nut meats and candied cherries, or preserved cherries. Mix with a little fondant, roll into balls and coat with chocolate, and you have a delicious cream.
Take walnut meats and dip in melted fondant, and when this has become firm dip in more fondant of a different flavor and color. Repeat this twice, then when cold coat with chocolate. Any kind of nut meats may be used in the same way. HOW TO COAT CHOCOLATE CREAMS Most confectioners use a bittersweet chocolate with which they coat their chocolates; this may be obtained at any good confectionery shop and will cost about fifty cents a pound, but if this is not obtainable a bittersweet chocolate can be made by combining sweetened chocolate with Baker's bitter chocolate. Use half and half of each, and blend well together before dipping the chocolates in it. Any one who likes the bitter tang in the chocolates may use the bitter chocolate by itself. A small amount of cocoa butter may be added to the melted chocolate; this will make it go further and add to the glossy effect without being harmful.
Melt your chocolate in a double boiler, and always be very careful not to get any water into it or it will not harden, but be messy and sticky. Stir while melting and it will do so more quickly, and the less heat it takes to melt the chocolate the better. After the chocolate is melted it can be placed in bowls or cups for dipping. There are two or three ways of coating chocolate creams. Most confectioners put the chocolate on with their fingers, but if one does not care to do this they can be dipped with a candy dipper or fork into the melted chocolate. They may also be coated with a thin bladed knife or spatula. If you are going to put the chocolate on with the hands it should be allowed to get nearly cool, and then knead well. Only use a small portion at once or it will get too hard, then you must work quickly in a warm room. Use your right hand for coating, and throw the centers into the chocolate with your left. Work the chocolate up around the centers quickly, and then drop on a waxed paper or on clean, smooth tin. String up a little of the chocolate on top and twirl with the fingers to give that twist that is found on most bought creams. For many dipping is much easier. Drop the centers into the melted chocolate, turn over, lift out with wire dipper or fork, with a knife scrape off any surplus chocolate and place on waxed paper or on tin. Set in a cool place immediately to harden. If a knife is used for coating, place a little of the chocolate on oiled or waxed paper, and place the centers on top of it; this forms the bottoms. Then with a knife spread chocolate over the sides, dipping the knife into the chocolate until the centers are entirely coated. If the chocolate hardens before all the creams are dipped it can be melted again. BONBONS MADE WITH COCOANUT Cocoanut cubes are made by taking two cupfuls of fondant and melting it in a double boiler, stir in one cupful of grated cocoanut and mix in well. Pour this into a square box lined with paraffine paper; it should be about an inch thick. When cold cut into squares. This cocoanut mixture may be variously tinted and given unusual and elusive flavors, and thus one may have a variety. Another way to make cocoanut cubes is to melts some fondant and pour half of it in a square or oblong box lined with paraffine paper. Then cover this over with cocoanut a half inch, then pour over the remainder of the fondant. This is especially good if the fondant is colored rose or pink. When cold cut into cubes.
This is a chapter of variations rather than a single formula, all of them resting on two skills: melting fondant without cooking it, and coating in chocolate that sets hard. A few points make the difference between glossy bonbons and grey, sticky ones.
- The hinge: keep water out, keep heat lowMelted chocolate seizes on contact with even a drop of water or steam, and stray water or condensation will loosen melted fondant. Use a double boiler with barely simmering water, wipe the bottom of the upper pan before pouring, and do not cover the chocolate, since condensation from the lid will run back in.
- Fondant temperatureFondant should be warmed only until it just flows, and no hotter. Taken too hot it loses its fine crystal structure and dries dull and grainy instead of setting to a smooth cream. The lemon juice in the first recipe may invert a little sugar and help keep the coating soft, as well as flavouring it.
- Tempering, which the book assumes rather than statesThe "kneading" of nearly cool chocolate described for hand dipping is tempering by hand. Untempered chocolate sets soft and streaked with white bloom. Modern practice: melt dark chocolate to about 115F, cool to 82F while stirring, then warm back to 88-90F for dipping. Compound or "coating" chocolate skips this entirely if you would rather not fuss.
- Baker's bitter chocolateThis is unsweetened chocolate liquor, still sold in bars for baking. Half unsweetened and half sweet eating chocolate gives roughly a modern bittersweet, the exact strength depending on how sweet the second chocolate is; bittersweet can now simply be bought outright.
- Cocoa butterStill available from candy suppliers and worth the trouble: an ounce or so per pound of chocolate thins the coating and improves shine. Do not substitute butter, oil or shortening, which will soften the set.
- Paraffine paper and "clean tin"Use parchment or a silicone mat. Waxed paper works but the wax can mark the bottoms of warm chocolate. The sheet of tin was prized because metal draws heat out fast; a chilled baking sheet does the same.
- The dipping roomConfectioners' dipping rooms were kept fairly cool, in the region of 65-70F, cool enough for the chocolate to set but not so cold that it dulls; the book's 'warm room' is warmer than that. Chill the dipped pieces only briefly; a long spell in a modern refrigerator invites condensation and sugar bloom.
- CocoanutNineteenth and early twentieth century recipes mean freshly grated coconut, moist and unsweetened. Today's sweetened flaked coconut will make the cubes cloying and wet; use unsweetened desiccated or fine-shred coconut instead.
- Blanching nutsOnly almonds and pistachios genuinely need blanching. Walnuts, pecans, hickory nuts and Brazil nuts are better toasted at 350F for 8-10 minutes and cooled completely, since a warm nut will melt the fondant it is dipped into.
- YieldTwo cupfuls of fondant is roughly a pound. The recipe gives no yield; as a rough estimate it will coat several dozen nut centers, or fill a small square box an inch deep for cutting into inch cubes, before the chocolate is added.
Home candy making had a considerable vogue in the United States roughly between 1890 and the First World War, driven by cheap refined sugar and a run of small books like this one promising that anything sold in a confectioner's window could be made at the kitchen range. The whole chapter turns on fondant, the sugar-and-water paste worked until it crystallizes fine, which professional confectioners are generally said to have used since the mid-nineteenth century and which home writers seized on because it keeps for weeks in a covered crock and can be flavored and tinted a dozen ways from one batch. The casual note that coating chocolate "will cost about fifty cents a pound" is a useful marker of the moment: couverture was a specialist purchase from a confectionery shop, not a grocery item, and Baker's unsweetened bar was a common fallback. The instruction to twirl a string of chocolate on top with the fingers is the period signature of hand dipping.