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Surprise Chocolate Creams
Fondant, Candied or maraschino cherries, Flavoring of almond or vanilla, Chopped peanuts, 1/2 a pound of Baker's "Dot" Chocolate. Melt the fondant over hot water and add the flavoring. Put a bit of cherry in the bottom of each starch impression, then turn in the melted fondant, to fill the impressions and have them level on the top. Let the chocolate, broken in bits, be melted over warm water, then add as many chopped peanuts as can be well stirred into it; let cool to about 80 degree F. and in it drop the creams, one at a time; as coated dispose them on table oil cloth or waxed paper.
A confectioner's method scaled to the home kitchen: cherry-centred fondant cast in starch, then hand-dipped in peanut-studded chocolate. Two things need translating before you start — the starch moulds and the chocolate itself.
- Starch impressionsThe recipe assumes a starch tray: a shallow box filled with dried cornstarch, levelled off, with cavities pressed into it by a plaster or wooden mould. Fill a rimmed tray about an inch deep with cornstarch dried in a low oven and cooled, then press evenly spaced dents with the back of a small spoon or a wooden dowel. Brush the set centres clean of loose starch before dipping. Silicone candy moulds do the same job with no starch at all, though the fondant surface comes out glossier rather than matte.
- FondantNot the rolled sugar paste sold for cake covering. This is poured fondant — sugar, water and a little glucose or cream of tartar boiled to about 238°F, cooled undisturbed, then agitated until it turns opaque and stiff. Melt it gently over hot water to no more than about 150°F; overheating makes it grainy and dull when set.
- Baker's "Dot" ChocolateA Walter Baker coating chocolate, long discontinued; the name suggests it was sold in small dots or drops. It was a sweet coating rather than a modern high-percentage bar, so a semisweet couverture is the closest substitute. As a rough guide, half a pound will coat something in the region of a pound of centres.
- The 80°F instruction is temperingThe 80F instruction is tempering -- melt the chocolate to around 115F, then cool it to 80F while stirring; the original appears to be describing seeded or tabled tempering in shorthand. Modern practice would bring the cooled chocolate back up to a working temperature of about 88F before dipping, at which point it sets hard and snappy; chocolate dipped too warm sets soft and tends to bloom grey.
- CherriesCandied cherries hold their shape and add little moisture. Maraschino cherries must be drained and blotted thoroughly, or the syrup will weep into the fondant and eventually blow the shell.
- PeanutsChop fine and dry-toast them first; nut oil and residual moisture both work against a stable temper. "As many as can be well stirred in" is left to judgement: stop while the coating still flows well enough to dip.
- FlavouringAlmond extract of this period was based on oil of bitter almonds, and in fondant work it was added by drops rather than spoonfuls. Add it sparingly and taste; vanilla can be used more freely.
- Setting surface"table oil cloth" is cotton cloth coated with linseed oil or varnish, used as a wipeable table covering; waxed paper, parchment or a silicone mat all serve. Let the pieces set at cool room temperature, around 65F. The refrigerator causes condensation and sugar bloom.
- YieldNot stated. Half a pound of chocolate coats roughly 35 to 45 centres of about half an inch, depending on how thickly you dip.
Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts, published *Choice Recipes* as promotional literature, the pamphlets bundling contributions from well-known cookery writers of the day around the company's own chocolate and cocoa products. Recipes like this one show how far the home confectioner was expected to follow professional practice: starch-moulded fondant centres were the standard industrial method for cream candies from the late nineteenth century onward, and the instruction to cool the coating to a specific temperature before dipping is tempering described without the word. The "surprise" is simply the hidden cherry alongside the peanut-studded exterior, which is often said to reflect a fashion of the era, when American peanut consumption was rising and confectioners were folding nuts into everything from bars to brittle.