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Walnut Cream-Chocolates
2 1/2 cups of granulated sugar, 1/2 a cup of condensed milk, 1/2 a cup of water, 3 or 4 tablespoonfuls of thick caramel syrup, A little water, 1 teaspoonful of vanilla, 1/2 a pound of Baker's "Dot" Chocolate. Put the sugar, condensed milk and water over the fire to boil, stir gently but often, and let cook to the soft ball stage, or to 238 degree F. Pour on a damp marble and let stand undisturbed until cold; turn to a cream, then gather into a compact mass; cover with a bowl and let stand for thirty minutes; then knead the cream; put it into a double boiler; add the caramel syrup and the vanilla; stir constantly while the mixture becomes warm and thin; add a tablespoonful or two of water, if necessary, and drop the cream mixture into impressions made in cornstarch. Use two teaspoons to drop the cream. When the candy is cold, pick it from the starch. With a small brush remove the starch that sticks to the candy shapes. Coat each piece with "Dot" Chocolate. As each piece is coated and dropped onto the oil cloth, set half an English walnut meat upon the top.
This is a fondant made by hand and cast in dry starch, the same technique confectioners used industrially. Nothing in it is difficult, but two things decide the outcome: hitting 238F exactly, and tempering the coating chocolate.
- The hinge: 238FUse a calibrated thermometer and stop the boil the moment it reads 238F (soft ball). A few degrees over gives fondant that will not cream smoothly and stays grainy; a few degrees under gives centers that slump out of the starch impressions.
- "Dot" ChocolateA Walter Baker product no longer sold, used here as a dipping or coating chocolate. Substitute about 8 oz of good semisweet couverture, tempered (melt to 115F, cool to 82F, rewarm to 88-90F), or use a compound coating if you would rather skip tempering.
- Condensed milkIn this period "condensed milk" normally meant the sweetened canned product rather than evaporated milk; substituting evaporated milk will give a noticeably less sweet centre.
- Caramel syrupNot commercial caramel sauce. Melt granulated sugar to a deep amber, then carefully add a little hot water to make a pourable syrup and cool it. It supplies color and a faint bitterness against the vanilla.
- Turning the cream"Turn to a cream" means working the cold syrup back and forth with a scraper or stiff spatula until it goes opaque and stiff. The rest under a bowl and the second kneading are not optional; they let the crystals even out, which is what makes the finished center soft rather than sandy.
- The marble, and what to use insteadA damp marble slab keeps the syrup cooling evenly. A chilled granite counter or a large rimmed sheet pan set on a cool surface works; do not pour onto anything that flexes.
- Starch impressionsFill a shallow pan with cornstarch dried in a 200F oven for an hour and leveled off, then press impressions with the rounded end of a wooden spoon or a plaster mold. The starch must be bone dry or the centers pick up moisture and weep. Sift and reserve it; it can be reused.
- Warming the fondantIn the double boiler the fondant should become fluid but no hotter than it needs to be to flow. Overheated fondant loses its fine crystal structure and sets hard and dull.
- Oil cloth and yieldOil cloth -- Substitute parchment or a silicone mat; set the walnut half on while the coating is still wet so it anchors.
Choice Recipes was one of the promotional booklets Walter Baker & Co. of Dorchester, Massachusetts issued around the turn of the twentieth century, drawing on recipes by cooking-school teachers, Maria Parloa among them, and the recipes call for Baker products by brand. "Dot" was a Baker coating chocolate, used by confectioners and home candy makers for dipped work. The starch-casting method here is the domestic version of the confectioner's starch mogul, a machine that stamped rows of impressions into trays of dry cornstarch and deposited fondant into them; scaled down to a bread pan and a wooden spoon handle, it let home cooks imitate the smooth-domed cream centers of commercial boxed candy, which was then a fashionable and expensive gift.