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Chocolate Bonbons
Make small balls of the uncooked fondant and press into little flat cakes. Make a dent in the middle and drop a preserved strawberry in. Dip gently into melted chocolate and set aside to cool. When cold, wrap around with more fondant and then dip in chocolate again. The bonbons may be varied by adding nuts or candied fruit to the fondant instead of the preserved fruit. A small piece of preserved ginger makes a delicious filling for these coffee dainties.
A dipping-and-rolling job rather than a cooked candy: the only real skill is in the chocolate. Everything else is assembly.
- Uncooked fondantThis is the kneaded confectioners' sugar paste, not the boiled-and-cooled kind: sifted powdered sugar worked with a little cream, butter and flavouring until it holds together like marzipan. If your fondant recipe calls for raw egg white as the binder, use pasteurised white, since nothing here is cooked afterward.
- Temper the chocolateThis is the hinge. Chocolate simply melted and cooled will bloom grey and stay soft; bring couverture to about 115F, cool it to 82F, then rewarm to 88-90F for dark or 86-88F for milk so the shells set crisp and glossy at room temperature.
- Keep the water outMelt over barely steaming water or in short bursts in a microwave. A drop of condensation seizes the chocolate into a grainy paste that cannot be dipped.
- Preserved strawberries and gingerWhole strawberries in heavy syrup were a common home preserve in the period; today drained candied or glace strawberries work better, as syrup-packed fruit weeps into the fondant. Blot any wet fruit dry before enclosing it. Stem ginger in syrup, cut into pea-sized pieces and patted dry, works well among the fillings suggested.
- The double dipLet the first chocolate coat set fully hard at cool room temperature before wrapping it in the second layer of fondant. Warm fondant pressed onto soft chocolate will smear and the finished bonbon will look bruised.
- Size and yieldWork to about 1 inch finished, roughly 1/2 oz of fondant per centre before the second wrapping.
- Setting and storageSet on parchment or a silicone mat in a cool room, not the refrigerator, which sweats the shells. Kept airtight at 60-65F they hold a week; the fondant gradually softens against the fruit after that.