Home › Recipes › Almond Fondant Balls
Almond Fondant Balls
Roll part of the almond fondant into small balls. Some of the "Dot" Chocolate will be left after dipping the almond chocolate sticks. Remelt this over hot water, and in it coat the balls lightly. As each ball is coated with the chocolate drop it into a plate of chopped pistachio nut meats or of chopped cocoanut (fresh or dessicated). With a spoon sprinkle the chopped material over the balls.
This is the tail end of a sequence of confectionery recipes: it assumes you have already made a batch of almond fondant and dipped a tray of chocolate sticks, and it puts the leftovers to work. Read it as a use-up instruction rather than a standalone project.
- The hinge: keep the chocolate cool and dryRemelting over hot water is the fiddly part. Water should be hot to the touch, not simmering, and no steam or drip may reach the bowl or the chocolate seizes into a grainy paste. Modern tempering guides put dark chocolate's working range around 88-90F; the recipe itself specifies no temperature. Stir rather than beat.
- "Dot" ChocolateA Walter Baker product sold as a sweetened coating chocolate for dipping. Any modern couverture or confectioners' coating stands in; a compound coating is the most forgiving because it needs no tempering.
- Almond fondantThe fondant recipe is elsewhere in the book; a cooked sugar fondant worked with ground almonds would give roughly the texture of firm marzipan. Commercial marzipan or almond paste, kneaded until smooth, rolls into balls the same way.
- Ball sizeThe recipe says only "small" and gives no measure. Chill the rolled balls before dipping so the coating sets fast and stays thin.
- CocoanutSimply coconut in period spelling. "Fresh" means grated from the nut; desiccated is the dry shredded kind, and unsweetened shred is closer to the original than today's sweetened flake.
- Sprinkling rather than rollingThe ball goes into the plate of chopped nuts or coconut and more is spooned over it with a spoon rather than being rolled about, which may be to keep the soft coating from smearing. Move each one to paper with two forks once it is covered.
- Yield and keepingKeeping -- Store the finished balls in a single layer in a cool room rather than the refrigerator, where condensation will bloom the chocolate.
Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, was the oldest chocolate firm in the United States, and its small premium recipe booklets, issued in many editions from the 1880s onward, were as much advertising as cookery, with contributions solicited from well-known cooking-school teachers of the day. Recipes like this one exist to move branded product: the "Dot" chocolate named in the text was one of the company's own dipping coatings, and the instruction to reuse what is left from another recipe reflects period thrift. Home candy-making was a genuine craze in this era, and fondant centres dipped in chocolate were its staple form -- the same technique commercial confectioners used, scaled to a kitchen and a double boiler.