Fondant
1 cup water 1/4 saltspoon cream of tartar Put the ingredients in a copper or granite saucepan; stir until the sugar is dissolved, but no longer.* Boil until the mixture makes a very soft ball when dropped in cold water. After it has boiled a few minutes sugar will adhere to the sides of the kettle: this should be washed off as soon as it forms, with the hand first dipped in cold water. Pour the mixture slowly on a moist marble slab or large platter; let it cool until pressure with the finger leaves a dent on the surface. If stirred while too warm or if cooked too long it will granulate and must be recooked, adding more water. When it will dent work the mass with a wooden spoon or spatula, keeping the mass in the center as much as possible. Continue to stir until creamy; then work with the hands until perfectly smooth. Put in a bowl; cover with oiled paper to exclude the air and let stand for twenty-four hours.
Make into balls for cream chocolates and centers of walnut creams, date creams, etc., adding flavoring as desired. For cocoanut creams stir in grated or dried cocoanut. White of 1 egg
A standard turn-of-the-century sugar fondant, meant as the base for chocolate creams and other filled candies. The ingredient list as printed is incomplete, so read the notes before shopping.
- The missing sugarThe loose-leaf format has dropped the main ingredient: the list gives water, cream of tartar and (stranded at the end) an egg white, but no sugar. A fondant of this type runs about 2 lb (roughly 4 1/2 cups) granulated sugar to 1 cup water. Treat the quantity as ambiguous in the original rather than authentic.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, so 1/4 saltspoon is about 1/16 teaspoon of cream of tartar he acid to invert a little of the sugar and keep the fondant from turning grainy.
- Soft ball, in numbers"a very soft ball when dropped in cold water" corresponds to the lower end of the soft-ball range, roughly 234-238F on a candy thermometer. Cook it hotter and the fondant sets firmer and harder to work; short of it, the mass never sets properly.
- Stir only onceThe instruction to stop stirring once the sugar dissolves is the hinge of the whole recipe. Any agitation after that seeds crystals, and the batch granulates rather than creams.
- Washing the pan sidesDo this with a pastry brush dipped in cold water, or clap a lid on for the first minute so steam rinses the walls. Dipping a bare hand into a pan of boiling syrup is not worth the risk, and a stray crystal falling back in can seed the whole batch.
- Copper or granite"Granite" here means graniteware, enamel over steel. Unlined copper is traditional for sugar work because it conducts evenly, and heavy stainless is a fine substitute. Avoid thin pans, which scorch at the bottom.
- The marble slabMarble pulls heat out fast and evenly, which is why it is specified. A cold sheet pan works; a warm one does not. Cool to about 110F, when a fingertip dents the surface, before working it.
- The twenty-four hoursThis rest is ripening, not idleness. The crystal structure evens out and the fondant becomes noticeably softer and more pliable, which matters when you roll centers.
- YieldDepends on the missing sugar quantity; on the 2 lb assumption above, about 2 lb of fondant, enough for several dozen dipped centers. It keeps for some weeks well wrapped in the refrigerator.
Fondant othing more than sugar syrup crystallized under control is often said to underpin much of the American commercial candy trade, and by the late nineteenth century it had migrated from the confectioner's marble bench into the domestic kitchen, with home-candy manuals printing fondant recipes from the 1880s and 1890s onward. Books like Mrs. Fryer's treat it as a mother recipe: one batch, tinted and flavored, becomes chocolate creams, walnut creams, date creams and coconut creams, all listed here in a single closing sentence. The technique reflects what confectioners had learned empirically about crystallization long before food chemists explained it that a trace of acid such as cream of tartar inverts some of the sucrose and interferes with large crystal growth, and that stirring at the wrong temperature undoes everything. Candy-making was also a sociable home activity in this period, and the marble slab, once specialist equipment, turns up in household manuals as a reasonable thing for a family to own.