Cherry Chocolate Creams

A dipped fondant candy from Walter Baker's promotional booklet, written in the shorthand of a book that assumes you have already read the almond cream recipe a few pages earlier. Everything hinges on the temperature of the coating.

• The missing instruction"Coat in the same manner as the almond creams" refers the reader back to the dipping method given earlier in the book, which is not reproduced on this page. Broadly it means melting the chocolate with the fondant over hot water, adding the vanilla, dipping each center and lifting it out onto waxed paper; the "Bits of cherry" in the coating list suggest a piece pressed on top before it sets.
• FondantHere it means cooked sugar fondant, boiled to roughly 238-240F, worked pale and creamy on a slab and then ripened, not the ready-rolled sheeting sold for cake covering. Commercial rolled fondant is far stiffer and will not behave the same way; buy poured or dipping fondant, or make it.
• Baker's Premium No. 1This was unsweetened baking chocolate, and the squares of the period were one ounce each. Two squares is 2 oz of unsweetened chocolate " bitter on its own, which is why it is cut with a full cup of sweet fondant.
• Working temperatureKeep the coating over warm, not boiling, water. Too hot and the fondant thins and dulls; too cool and it thickens into a lumpy mass you cannot dip through.
• Candied cherriesModern glace cherries can be quite wet; blot them after chopping, as extra syrup will slacken the centers.
• Shaping the centersKnead the chopped cherries into the half cup of fondant and roll into small balls. Letting them stand until the surface skins over makes them dip more cleanly, though the book says nothing about size or standing time.
• YieldThe three-quarters of a cup of center mixture makes a few dozen small candies, depending on the size you roll and how thickly you dip. The coating quantity is generous, as dipping always needs a working surplus.