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Chocolate Almond Bars
1/2 a cup of sugar, 3/4 a cup of pure corn syrup, 1/2 a cup of water, (1/4 an ounce of paraffine at discretion), 1/2 a cup of blanched almonds, chopped fine, 1/3 the recipe for fondant, 3 or 4 ounces of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, 1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
Melt the sugar in the water and pure corn syrup and let boil to about 252 degree F., or between a soft and a hard ball. Without the paraffine cook a little higher than with it. Add the almonds and the vanilla, mix thoroughly and turn onto a marble or platter over which powdered sugar has been sifted. Turn out the candy in such a way that it will take a rectangular shape on the marble. When cool enough score it in strips about an inch and a quarter wide, and, as it grows cooler, lift the strips, one by one, to a board and cut them in pieces half or three-quarters of an inch wide. When cold, drop them, sugar side down, in chocolate fondant prepared for "dipping." With the fork push them below the fondant, lift out, drain as much as possible, and set onto oil cloth. These improve upon keeping.
A nougat-adjacent almond chew, cut into bars and dipped in chocolate fondant. Two things decide the outcome: the syrup temperature and how quickly you cut the slab before it sets hard.
- The hinge: 252FCook to about 252F, which the recipe describes as between a soft and a hard ball. Much above and the bars set hard and glassy; much below and the strips may slump and not hold a cut edge.
- Skip the paraffinParaffin was used in candy for gloss and a softer chew, and food-grade paraffin is still sold for confectionery. The recipe itself marks it "at discretion"; if you leave it out, the recipe says to cook the syrup a little higher than with it.
- Baker's Premium No. 1Walter Baker's unsweetened baking chocolate; the modern Baker's unsweetened bar is its descendant. It flavors the fondant, which supplies the sugar.
- Pure corn syrupMeans plain corn syrup, uncolored and unflavored. Modern light corn syrup, some brands of which carry added vanilla flavoring, works.
- One third the fondant recipeThe book's fondant is a separate entry, so the quantity depends on that batch; warm it over hot (not boiling) water until it flows, then blend with the melted chocolate. Overheating dulls and grains the coating.
- Surface and marbleA marble slab dusted with sifted confectioners' sugar is still the best surface because it pulls heat fast. A heavy sheet pan works.
- Oil clothRead as parchment or a silicone mat. Set the dipped bars down and leave them undisturbed until the fondant loses its shine.
- Timing the cutScore at the point where the slab holds a mark but the knife does not drag, which is the recipe's "when cool enough." Wait too long and the strips are liable to shatter rather than part.
- Yield and keepingThe book gives no yield. The recipe's own claim that these improve upon keeping is worth taking at face value; store them in a tin.
Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts issued Choice Recipes and its successors as promotional cookbooks, and candy-making chapters like this one belong to the vogue for home confectionery of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when fondant, dipping forks and marble slabs turned up in ordinary kitchens. The recipe is essentially a firm almond taffy given a chocolate fondant shell. Paraffin appears here as a softener and gloss agent, as it was used in the confectionery trade. The instruction to prepare fondant "for dipping" assumes the reader already knows the book's fondant entry.