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Stuffed Dates, Chocolate Dipped
Cut choice dates open on one side and remove the seeds. Fill the open space in the dates with a strip of preserved ginger or pineapple, chopped nuts or chopped nuts mixed with white or chocolate fondant; press the dates into a compact form to keep in the filling; then dip them, one by one, in "Dot" Chocolate.
CHOCOLATE OYSTERETTES, PLAIN AND WITH CHOPPED FIGS Oyster crackers, salted preferred, Fine-chopped roasted peanuts, or raisins or 3 or 4 basket figs or a little French fruit cut in very small bits, 1/2 a pound or more of Baker's "Dot" Chocolate.
Select fresh-baked crackers free from crumbs. Dip in "Dot" Chocolate, made ready as in previous recipes, and dispose on oil cloth or waxed paper. For a change add figs or other fruit, cut very fine, or chopped nuts to the chocolate ready for dipping.
TURKISH PASTE WITH FRENCH FRUIT, CHOCOLATE FLAVORED 3 level tablespoonfuls of granulated gelatine 1/2 a cup of cold water, 2 cups of sugar, 2/3 a cup of cold water, 1 teaspoonful of ground cinnamon, 2 squares of Baker's Premium No. 1 Chocolate, 1 teaspoonful of vanilla extract, 1 cup of French candied fruit (cherries, angelica, citron, etc.), chopped fine. Let the gelatine stand in the half cup of cold water until it has taken up all of the water. Stir the sugar and the two-thirds a cup of cold water over the fire until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup is boiling, then add the gelatine and let cook twenty minutes; add the cinnamon, the chocolate, melted over hot water, and beat all together, then add the vanilla and the fruit; let stand in a cool place for a time, then when it thickens a little turn into an unbuttered bread pan and set aside until the next day. To unmould separate the paste from the pan--at the edge--with a sharp-pointed knife. Sift confectioner's sugar over the top, then with the tips of the fingers gently pull the paste from the pan to a board dredged with confectioner's sugar; cut into strips, then into small squares. Roll each square in confectioner's sugar. In cutting keep sugar between the knife and the paste.
Three dipping-and-setting confections from a Walter Baker promotional booklet, written when "Dot" chocolate was a product you bought by name. The chocolate work is the fussy part; the Turkish paste is mostly waiting.
- "Dot" ChocolateA Baker's sweetened chocolate sold under that name for dipping, long discontinued; the booklet does not describe the form it came in. Use a dark couverture or a purpose-made coating chocolate; if you use couverture it must be tempered, or the finished pieces will bloom grey and stay soft.
- Premium No. 1 ChocolateBaker's unsweetened baking chocolate, still sold in 1 oz squares. Two squares is 2 oz. Do not substitute semisweet in the Turkish paste — the sugar is already accounted for.
- Gelatine measureThree level tablespoons is about nine teaspoons, roughly four quarter-ounce envelopes, about 28 g. Early gelatines may not have matched modern ones in strength, so err slightly under rather than over.
- Basket figsDried Smyrna figs, once sold pressed into flat woven baskets. Any good soft dried fig works; chop fine so the pieces suspend in the chocolate rather than sinking.
- OysterettesSmall round oyster crackers, still available. Salted is the better choice, as the booklet says — the contrast is the whole point of the sweet.
- AngelicaCandied angelica stem, the green element in old French candied fruit mixes. Hard to find now; candied citron, cherries and orange peel will carry the recipe without it.
- Oil clothRead as waxed or parchment paper, or a silicone mat. Bare oilcloth would now be vinyl-coated and is not the right surface for setting chocolate.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe specifies only a "bread pan," so the slab will be fairly thin and yields several dozen small squares depending on the pan. Store the dipped dates and crackers in a cool dry place, not the refrigerator, where condensation will dull the chocolate and soften the crackers.
Choice Recipes was one of a long series of booklets issued by Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts — the oldest chocolate firm in the United States — as advertising that doubled as a genuinely useful kitchen manual. The recipes name Baker's products throughout because that was the point: "Dot" chocolate and Premium No. 1 were lines the company wanted in home pantries at a moment when household candy-making was a fashionable parlour activity rather than a specialist trade. The Turkish paste here is an American reworking of lokum, the Ottoman sweet generally traced to Istanbul confectioners of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, which Europeans came to know as Turkish delight. Authentic lokum is set with cornstarch and cooked for hours; the gelatine version, faster and forgiving, was standard in American cookbooks of this era, and chocolate and French candied fruit are added to it here.<br><br>The stuffed dates belong to the same period's enthusiasm for dressed-up dried fruit, which arrived in quantity from North Africa and the Middle East once steamship freight made it cheap. Dipping salted oyster crackers in chocolate reads as a novelty now and probably did then too.</html>