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Chocolate Marshmallows
Cut the marshmallows in halves, and put them, one by one, cut side down, in chocolate fondant (as prepared for almond and cherry chocolate creams), melted over hot water and flavored to taste with vanilla. Beat the chocolate with the fork that it may not crust over, lift out the marshmallow, turn it and, in removing the fork, leave its imprint in the chocolate; sprinkle at once with a little fine-chopped pistachio nut meat. To prepare the nuts, set them over the fire in tepid water to cover, heat to the boiling point, drain, cover with cold water, then take them up, one by one, and with the thumb and finger push the meat from the skin.
A dipping-and-finishing method rather than a full recipe: the work is in the fondant and the temperature at which you hold it. Two details carry the result — the fondant must stay just fluid over hot water, and the pistachios must be blanched and chopped before you start dipping.
- The cross-reference"Chocolate fondant (as prepared for almond and cherry chocolate creams)" means cooked sugar fondant with melted unsweetened chocolate worked into it, presumably the unsweetened cake chocolate the book was written to promote. A commercial fondant is the nearest substitute; a very hard-setting coating chocolate will contrast oddly with a soft marshmallow.
- Melted over hot waterA double boiler with the water hot rather than boiling hard. Fondant held much above about 120F/50C loosens and dulls, and water or steam dripping in will spoil the coating.
- Why to beat with the forkThis is the hinge. The recipe says plainly that beating keeps the fondant from crusting over, and a crusted surface gives a streaky, cracked coating. Stir between each piece rather than every few pieces.
- The fork imprintThe imprint is deliberate: the recipe tells you to leave it. It is often said to have served as the mark of a hand-dipped centre.
- Marshmallows have changedMarshmallows of this period were typically denser than modern ones, cut from a slab and dusted with starch and sugar; gelatin was common by then, though gum-based versions survived. Brush the cut face of modern ones free of loose starch or the fondant will not grip. Halved standard marshmallows work; the tiny ones are not worth dipping.
- Blanching the pistachiosThe hot-then-cold water method described still works, though pistachio skins are stubborn and slow to slip. Dry the nuts before chopping or the damp meats will bleed colour into the fondant.
- Sprinkle at onceThe recipe means it: the surface firms quickly as the fondant cools, and nuts added late will sit on top and fall off.
Choice Recipes was one of a long series of promotional pamphlets issued by Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts — the oldest chocolate concern in the United States, and by the late nineteenth century a company that sold cocoa and unsweetened cake chocolate largely by teaching American housekeepers what to do with it. The recipes were gathered from cooking-school teachers of the day, Maria Parloa and Fannie Merritt Farmer among the names attached to Baker's booklets, and the confectionery pages assume a home cook willing to boil fondant and hand-dip centres, work that was then done in the same kitchen as the family dinner. Marshmallows themselves had shifted meaning by this point: the name comes from the mucilage of the marsh mallow root, Althaea officinalis, once used to set the sweet, but by the 1890s gelatin had largely replaced it and marshmallows could be had as a grocery item — which may be why this entry begins by telling you to cut them rather than make them, though confectionery collections of this date often included marshmallow-making recipes as well.