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Chocolate Butter Creams
2 1/2 cups of sugar, 1/2 a cup of water, 1/4 a cup of pure corn syrup, 1/4 a cup of butter, 2 1/2 ounces of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, 2 teaspoonfuls of vanilla, 1/2 a pound of Baker's "Dot" Chocolate.
Put the sugar, water, pure corn syrup and butter over the fire; stir until the sugar is melted, then cook to the soft ball degree, or 236 degree F.; pour on a damp marble and leave until cold; then pour on the Premium Chocolate, melted over hot water, and with a spatula turn to a cream. This process is longer than with the ordinary fondant. Cover the chocolate fondant with a bowl and let stand for thirty minutes; knead well and set over the fire in a double boiler; add the vanilla and stir until melted. The mixture is now ready to be dropped into small impressions in starch; when cold and brushed free of starch dip in "Dot" Chocolate. When dropping the chocolate mixture into the starch it should be just soft enough to run level on the top. If too soft it will not hold its shape in coating.
A professional-style cream centre made by creaming a chocolate fondant and casting it in starch moulds. The technique is sound but assumes a candy shop's equipment and two Baker's products that no longer exist under those names.
- The hinge: cool before you creamThe syrup must sit on the slab until it is genuinely cold, around 100F or below, before it is worked. Stirring a hot syrup throws large sugar crystals and the centre turns grainy rather than smooth.
- Premium No. 1 ChocolateBaker's Premium No. 1 was plain unsweetened chocolate, nothing but ground cocoa liquor. Substitute 2 1/2 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate; do not use bittersweet, which brings its own sugar and will slacken the fondant.
- "Dot" ChocolateA sweetened coating chocolate sold for hand-dipping. Use half a pound of good dark couverture, tempered, or a compound coating if you would rather not temper. Untempered real chocolate tends to set soft and to bloom grey.
- 236F means 236FSoft ball is a narrow window. A degree or two high gives a stiff centre that will not run level in the mould; a degree low gives one too soft to coat. Calibrate the thermometer in boiling water first.
- The damp marbleSprinkle the slab with water rather than oiling it; the film of moisture stops the syrup gripping and keeps a skin from forming. A cold sheet pan works, though it cools less evenly than stone.
- Starch mouldsTrays of cornstarch dried in a low oven and levelled, with impressions pressed in by a moulding board. The starch must be thoroughly dry or the centres pick up moisture and weep. Sift and re-dry the starch between uses; silicone moulds are the modern shortcut, though the surface comes out glossier and less traditional.
- Pure corn syrupOrdinary light corn syrup. It is here as an interfering agent to keep crystals fine, not for sweetness, and should not be swapped for honey or golden syrup without changing the flavour of the centre.
- Consistency at the dropHold the double boiler barely warm. Following the recipe, the mixture should be just soft enough to run level on top of the impression; if it is softer than that it will not hold its shape when dipped.
Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, traced its chocolate mills back to 1780 and by the turn of the twentieth century was issuing small recipe booklets, of which Choice Recipes is one, with contributions credited to well-known cookery writers of the day. The booklets were advertising as much as instruction, which is why the ingredient list names two separate Baker's products by their trade grades. What is striking here is that this is not a home-cook recipe at all: casting fondant into impressions pressed in dried cornstarch is the starch-mogul method of the commercial confectioner, scaled down for a domestic marble slab. Chocolate-dipped cream centres were the fashionable American candy of the period, and booklets like this one encouraged households to attempt shop-quality work with shop-quality chocolate, sold by the same company.