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Wintergreen Creams
Melt a portion of fondant in the upper part of a double boiler until it is soft enough to drop from a spoon. It may be necessary to add a few drops of hot water. Color it with red vegetable coloring to a delicate pink. Flavor with oil of wintergreen. Stir until it is creamy. Drop from a teaspoon on oiled paper.
A fondant-based drop cream of the kind sold by the pound in 1920s candy shops. The whole thing turns on how gently the fondant is warmed.
- Heat is the hingeFondant must be warmed only until it slackens, over hot but not boiling water. Take it much past that and the sugar recrystallizes coarsely, and the finished creams will be grainy and dull rather than smooth.
- FondantThe book assumes you have a batch of basic cooked fondant on hand, made earlier and ripened. Commercial rolled fondant is a different, gelatin- or glycerine-based product and will not drop or set the same way; a poured or cooked sugar fondant is what is wanted.
- A few drops of hot waterAdd water literally by drops, stirring between each. Fondant thins very suddenly, and once it is loose enough to run rather than mound it will not hold a domed shape on the paper.
- Oil of wintergreen, used sparinglyThis is methyl salicylate, sold as a flavoring oil and far stronger than an alcohol-based extract. Two or three drops per pound of fondant is ample. It is not harmless in quantity — a teaspoonful is a genuinely dangerous dose, especially for a child — so buy a food-grade flavoring oil, measure it from a dropper, and never substitute a pharmacy liniment or a spoon-for-spoon extract measure.
- Red vegetable coloringPeriod vegetable colors were generally weaker than modern gel and liquid colors. Dip a toothpick rather than pouring, and stop at the delicate pink the recipe itself calls for.
- Oiled paperWaxed or parchment paper needs no oiling now. A silicone mat works equally well. Drop the creams in small mounds and leave them at cool room temperature, uncovered, until the surface is dry to the touch, usually an hour or two.
- YieldA pound of fondant gives roughly 40 to 50 teaspoon-sized creams. Store them between layers of waxed paper in a tin; refrigeration makes them sweat.