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Chocolate Cream Drops (These are lumps of cream candy)
These are lumps of cream candy coated by being dipped in melted chocolate. Make white cream candy by the method described for rose cream candy, but flavor it with vanilla if at all. Pour it hot into plaster of paris molds if you have them, making hazelnut sizes of drops. If no molds form the candy when nearly cold with the fingers, then taking them on a fork dip each piece in a bowl of chocolate, either common or sweet vanilla, melted by being set on the side of the range, and set the drops on buttered pans to cool and dry. Other shapes besides drops can of course be made in the same manner. The boiled icings or glaze elsewhere described when left over from icing cakes can also be formed into cream drops and coated by dipping in melted chocolate, and so likewise can be used the common cake icing and macaroon mixtures that may be left over from their first purpose.
A dipping recipe rather than a full formula — the fondant centre is borrowed from the book's rose cream candy, and the only real work here is the chocolate. Two things decide whether it succeeds: the firmness of the centre and the temper of the coating.
- The hinge: melted chocolate is not tempered chocolate"Melted by being set on the side of the range" gives soft coating that blooms grey and never snaps. Chop couverture, melt two-thirds of it to 45C/113F, then stir in the remaining third off the heat until it settles at 31-32C/88-90F for dark, 29-30C/84-86F for milk. Alternatively use a compound or "coating" chocolate, which sets hard without tempering.
- "Common or sweet vanilla" chocolateIn nineteenth-century trade usage "common" chocolate generally meant plain, unsweetened or barely sweetened chocolate sold in cakes, while "sweet vanilla" was the sweetened eating chocolate. For the first, a 55-70% dark couverture works; for the second, a sweet dark or milk couverture.
- Plaster of paris moldsThese were impression molds — a tray of plaster dented with a form, into which hot fondant was poured. Modern plaster is not sold as food-safe and the porous surface is difficult to clean, so use silicone truffle molds or skip the molds as the recipe itself allows and roll the centres by hand.
- Hazelnut sizeRoughly 2 cm / three-quarters of an inch across, about a rounded teaspoon of fondant.
- "Nearly cold" is the right momentFondant rolls cleanly at around body temperature, when it is stiff but still plastic. Hot, it slumps; fully cold, it cracks and crumbles under the fingers. If it has gone too far, warm it briefly in a bowl over hot water.
- Dipping with a forkA two-tine dipping fork or an ordinary table fork both work. Drop the centre in, lift, tap the fork on the rim to shed excess, and draw the underside across the edge before setting it down.
- Buttered pansButter leaves a greasy film and dulls the shell. Set the dipped drops on parchment or a silicone mat at 18-20C/64-68F and leave them until the bottoms release without sticking, usually 20-30 minutes.
- Using up leftoversBoiled icing, plain cake icing and macaroon paste all make workable centres, but they carry more moisture than fondant. Let them dry firm on a tray for several hours before dipping, or the coating will separate from the middle.
- Yield and keepingA pound of fondant will make several dozen hazelnut-sized drops, needing roughly half its weight again in chocolate for coating. Kept airtight and cool, they hold a week or two; refrigeration risks condensation and sugar bloom.
Chocolate creams were the great democratic confection of the later nineteenth century — a cheap fondant centre in an expensive-tasting jacket — and this entry sits squarely in the trade tradition of getting several products out of one batch of sugar. Note that the author does not give a formula at all but points back to the rose cream candy, then adds that leftover boiled icing, cake icing and macaroon paste can be pressed into service, so that the waste bowl becomes a raw material. Plaster impression molds of the kind mentioned here were standard shop equipment. Tempering as a measured process is generally reckoned a twentieth-century development; a confectioner of this period is often said to have judged the chocolate by feel and by how it set, which would explain why the instruction is simply to warm it at the side of the range.