Bonbons
THE foundation for nearly all bonbons is fondant. Hundreds of varieties of bonbons can be made by using different flavorings and different combinations of one kind with another. Bonbon making is fascinating work, and after they are made the home candy-maker has the satisfaction of knowing that she has a pure delicious candy at much less expense then if she bought it. CHOCOLATE CREAMS Many may be surprised to know that they can make several hundred different varieties of chocolate creams alone. The simplest chocolate creams are made by dipping the plain fondant, after it has been formed in bonbon shapes, into melted chocolate. These fondant centers may be flavored with vanilla, peppermint, wintergreen, pineapple, orange, lemon, banana, almond, pistachio, cinnamon, allspice and clove, rose and other kinds of flavors found in the market. Certain kinds of flavors can also be combined, which helps to add to the variety. Maple chocolate creams are made by dipping maple fondant into melted chocolate. Plain fondant, chocolate fondant and maple fondant are all fine combined with nuts. All sorts of candied fruits, preserved fruits and dried fruits are delicious combined with fondant in making these creams. Candied peels and candied ginger are also much used. CHOCOLATE CREAMS WITH FRUIT CENTERS Maraschino cherries, drained and dipped first in melted fondant flavored with almond, and then coated with chocolate, are delicious. Bits of candied pineapple dipped into fondant flavored with pineapple, lemon or orange and then coated with the chocolate, are fine. Work some thick pear preserves into fondant, add a little chopped candied ginger, and when cool coat with chocolate. Or before coating them with chocolate dip in fondant flavored with lemon or vanilla. Peach preserves dried in the oven, cooled and dipped in almond flavored fondant, then coated with chocolate, is another good combination. Whole strawberry preserves, drained of all juice, rolled in powdered sugar, then coated with chocolate, are delicious.
This is less a single recipe than a set of variations on one technique: shape a fondant center, dip it in chocolate. Everything depends on the fondant recipe elsewhere in the book and on the state of the chocolate.
- The hinge: chocolate temperature"Melted chocolate" understates the job. Real chocolate must be tempered to about 115F, cooled to 82F, then held at 88-90F for dark or 86-88F for milk while you dip, or the coating will bloom grey and stay soft. Confectioners' coating (compound chocolate) skips tempering entirely and is widely used by home dippers for this reason.
- Fondant consistencyFondant for centers should be firm enough to shape by hand; fondant for dipping fruit is thinned by warming gently over hot water, never over direct heat, to about 140F. Above that the sugar recrystallizes coarse and the finish goes dull and grainy.
- Dry the centers firstShaped centers need to sit uncovered on waxed paper for several hours, ideally overnight, until a thin crust forms. Dipping a damp center traps moisture, and the coating cracks or weeps within a day.
- Wet fruit is the main risk of failureMaraschino cherries, drained preserves and candied pineapple all carry enough moisture and syrup to dissolve fondant from the inside and burst the shell. Blot them thoroughly, and expect fruit-centered pieces to keep noticeably less well than a plain cream.
- Maraschino cherries have changedSome in this period were still preserved in maraschino liqueur or a brandied syrup, but brined, bleached and dyed imitations were already common in America by this time. Today's are brined, bleached and dyed, then packed in heavy sugar syrup — sweeter, softer and much wetter. Drain them on paper for an hour before dipping.
- HumidityFondant and dipped chocolates are ruined by damp air. Work on a dry, cool day in a kitchen under about 70F; a steamy stove nearby will leave every piece sticky and streaked.
- Invertase, if you want soft centersCommercial chocolate creams get their liquid center from invertase, an enzyme kneaded into the fondant that breaks sucrose down over a week or two. Without it, homemade centers stay firm — which is what this book expects.
- YieldThe book gives none. A pound of fondant makes roughly 40 to 50 centers of about a half-inch, and will need somewhere in the region of 8 to 12 ounces of chocolate to coat, depending how thickly you dip.
Fondant — from the French fondre, to melt — became the backbone of American home confectionery in the late nineteenth century, once cheap refined cane sugar put a controlled sugar crystallization within reach of a domestic kitchen. "Bonbon," literally "good-good" in French nursery talk, had by then loosened in English to mean almost any small dipped or coated sweet. The pitch made here, that the home candy-maker gets "a pure delicious candy at much less expense," is very much of its moment: commercial candy in this era was widely and often correctly suspected of adulteration with glucose, terra alba, and coal-tar dyes, and the agitation that produced the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 made purity a selling point for anything made at home. Dipping chocolate itself was the newer half of the craft — fondant centers coated in chocolate rather than merely rolled in sugar or nuts depended on the fine-ground eating chocolate that only became widely available to households late in the century.