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Fruit Candies: Place
QUINCE CONFECTIONS Melt some fondant in a bowl, flavor with orange or lemon. Put some preserved quinces into the oven until dry. Dip each quarter into melted fondant. Place on oiled paper to dry. Preserved pineapple can be used in the same way. MARASCHINO DROPS Take maraschino cherries. Dip into melted white or pink fondant that has been flavored with almond extract; then when hardened dip into melted chocolate fondant, or melted chocolate.
STRAWBERRY DIVINITY FUDGE Place in a saucepan two cupfuls of granulated sugar, half a cupful of water and a fourth teaspoonful of cream of tartar. Boil to the hard ball stage. Add one glassful of whole preserved strawberries and boil up again. Pour the mixture over the stiffly beaten whites of two eggs and beat up until light and foamy. When the mixture begins to harden pour into buttered pans and when cool cut into squares. Any thick preserved fruits can be used in the same way. Preserved strawberries and preserved pineapple are good combined, half and half of each being used. If pear preserves are used a little chopped ginger will be an improvement.
TUTTI-FRUTTI CREAM Melt one pound of fondant in a double-boiler, add one teaspoonful of vanilla or orange flavor; then add one tablespoonful of strawberry preserves (using only the berries), one tablespoonful of preserved cherries, two tablespoonfuls of preserved or candied pineapple, and one tablespoonful each of peach and pear preserves. The addition also of a teaspoonful each of candied orange and lemon peel will improve the mixture. When partly cool pour into a mold for slicing or form into bonbon shapes. If not quite stiff enough add powdered sugar to make of the right consistency to mold nicely. These can be rolled in powdered sugar or dipped in colored melted fondant or coated with chocolate. PEAR CARAMELS Place in a saucepan two cupfuls of light brown sugar, one cupful of corn syrup, half a cupful of good milk and one tablespoonful of butter. Boil for a few minutes, then add one cupful of preserved pears, half a cupful of chopped candied ginger and a fourth cupful of candied lemon peel. Boil to the hard ball stage, add one teaspoonful of orange flavor and pour into pans. When cold cut into squares. Peach caramels are made in the same manner, only instead of the candied ginger a cupful of chopped almonds is added, the orange or lemon peel is omitted and almond extract used.
MARZIPAN FRUIT CANDIES Delicious fruit candies can be made by using marzipan paste. To make this paste take one cup of blanched almonds and run them through a food chopper; then pound to a fine flour. Place in a bowl and add to this flour the same amount of powdered sugar. Use enough water, rose water, orange juice or grape juice to make stiff paste--about three ounces will be enough. Beat an egg up stiff and work it into the paste. Roll out the marzipan an inch thick and cut into rounds or squares. Place a bit of preserved fruit on each one and mold the paste up around it. Place in the oven until the candies are dry. Another way to make the paste is to boil the ingredients. Use about three ounces of rose water or other liquid to the amount of almonds and sugar given above. Stir over a slow fire until when touched with the finger the syrup will cling. When cool knead into a paste.
A cluster of confections built on two assumptions the modern cook no longer shares: that a jar of home-preserved fruit sits in the cellar, and that fondant is something kept on hand by the pound. Sort out those two and the rest is straightforward candy work.
- FondantEvery dipped recipe here starts from prepared fondant, which is simply assumed to be on hand. Commercial rolled fondant is too stiff and sweet for dipping; look for poured or dipping fondant, and melt it in a double boiler over water no hotter than about 150F. Overheated fondant loses its gloss and dries dull and grainy.
- Hard ball stage250-266F on a candy thermometer. The divinity wants the low end of that range, around 250-255F, or the finished candy sets hard rather than fluffy; the pear caramels can go to 260F for a firm chew.
- "One glassful"An ordinary tumbler, so roughly 8 fl oz. The recipe does not say whether the fruit is drained or added with its syrup; either way the measure is imprecise, and added liquid will drop your syrup temperature. The recipe only says to "boil up again," but expect to bring it back toward hard ball.
- Drying in the oven"Until dry" for the quinces and the marzipan means the lowest heat the oven will hold, 175-200F, with the door propped ajar. Anything hotter melts the preserve and browns the almond paste. An hour or more is normal; a dehydrator does the same job better.
- Raw egg in the marzipanThe beaten egg worked into the almond paste is never cooked — a low drying oven will not take it to a safe temperature. Use pasteurized shell eggs or liquid egg, or make the boiled version of the paste given at the end, which uses no egg at all.
- Maraschino cherriesAt the period some maraschino cherries were still preserved in marasca liqueur, though brined imitations were already common. The modern supermarket jar is brined, bleached and dyed. Drain them thoroughly and blot dry for several hours, or the fondant will weep and slide off.
- Grinding the almondsA food processor replaces the food chopper and mortar, but almonds ground too long turn to butter. Pulse in short bursts with a spoonful of the powdered sugar to absorb the oil; stop when the texture is like coarse flour. Store-bought almond flour works and skips the blanching.
- Corn syrup and "good milk"Light corn syrup is unchanged and still does the same anti-crystallizing job in the caramels. "Good milk" means whole milk, not skimmed; the caramels rely on its fat and milk solids for both texture and the browning flavour.
- YieldThe divinity gives roughly an 8-inch square pan, about 36 small squares. The pear caramels fill a similar pan; cut them at 1 inch and wrap each in waxed paper, or they will fuse back into one slab within a day.
These belong to the brief American vogue for the home candy kitchen in the years around the First World War, when granulated sugar and corn syrup were cheap and a run of small books promised that anything sold in a confectioner's window could be duplicated at home. The reliance on preserved fruit is the giveaway that this is a household rather than a professional book: jars of put-up strawberries, quinces and pears were the ordinary product of a summer's work, and the recipes here are quietly a way of using them up in January. Divinity itself is an American invention of roughly this era ot of uncertain origin and marzipan arrives from the German and Austrian confectionery tradition. Quince, the one fruit on the list a modern reader is least likely to have, was then a common dooryard tree, valued precisely because its high pectin and firm flesh survive long preserving without collapsing.