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London Fine Bakery Recipes. Fondant Icing or Cream Fondant

Says Mr. H.G. Harris in the British and Foreign Confectioner, Baker and Restaurateur (London): "Why do pastry cooks all over the country (he might have written 'all over two countries') persist in using icing sugar beaten up with whites of eggs or gelatine for making pastry and small fancy cakes? The dull, dead, opaque, and mostly rough surface obtained is always offensive to me, and, I think, must be so to any one accustomed to use fondant. The beautiful, bright, glistening, and semi-transparent fondant is still without a rival, and is withal so cheap, that I really do not understand why every confectioner in the country does not use it?"

As far as concerns the great body of our hotel pastry cooks, one very sufficient reason for their not adopting the better plan is set forth in the next paragraph: "The utensils needed are a stove for-boiling sugar-gas will do if you have a good volume of jets; a good-sized copper stewpan; a marble slab; a set of polished i-inch iron bars for making the sides of 'well' or 'bay' on the slab. A spattle like a small iron peelhead on the handle of a carpet-stretcher; and a flat steel scraper, like those used by painters. Also a small earthen pan with a cover, to keep the fondant in when made, and, say half a dozen small white metal French stewpans for melting the fondant for use as needed." To the above list should be added a saccharometer-a small glass instrument (which costs about $2.50), graded to show the different degrees of boiling sugar. It is a fact, more or less unfortunate, that but a very small proportion of hotels are so well furnished in their working departments as to possess these candy-making utensils, and the twenty thousand houses that are without such conveniences and yet employ pastry cooks at very fair pay, will still perpetuate the ready and easy methods which require no fresh outlay for special tools.

Every reader knows what fondant (pronounced fondong)is, but not by that name, who has ever eaten the assorted fancy candies of the shops, and will now understand its usefulness and value: it is the white, soft candy that forms the inside of chocolate drops, and that is used in making walnut creams, fig creams and all those "bon-bons" which have a strip of candied fruit or nuts pressed into a cream candy base. It is fondant icing to spread over cakes when it is melted over the fire, and, perhaps, slightly diluted with syrup. As icing it cannot be used for piping, but is only for a glossy covering for cakes. The most concise and lucid directions for making it are the following: CREAM FONDANT-NO:1. "I presume from your question that the cream you speak of is what we call fondant, which article is the basis of all cream bonbons. This fondant is also used for covering or icing cakes and a great variety of what is called dipped goods. Fondant is made by boiling simple syrup to the forty-fifth degree by the saccharometer; then pouring it on a very clean marble slab between iron bars, and when it has become nearly cold, so that you can place the back of your hand upon it without its adhering to it; it must be worked to and fro with a long-handled spatula until it granulates into a smooth mass, it must then with a knife be loosened from the marble and worked or broken with the hands into a softish mass, and placed into an earthenware pan and covered. When you want to use it for icing purposes place the required quantity in a round-bottomed pan, place it upon a slow fire, and stir constantly with a small wooden spatula until it is thoroughly melted, and there are no lumps in it. do not on any account allow it to boil, even a little, as that would entirely destroy its creamy texture and change it into hard conserve; when melted pour it over the article to be covered and use a pallet knife to smooth it and facilitate your operation, which must be done quickly, as in a few moments it will begin to set and dry. The cake can then be decorated with ordinary egg-icing, or in any other way to suit your fancy." CREAM FONDANT-NO. 2.

Take say 14 lbs. of good loaf sugar, put in a stewpan with 1 1/2lb. liquid glucose, and 2 quarts water; allow it to stand some time to dissolve the sugar; the less water you can dissolve the sugar in, the less time will it need boiling, and consequently the better color your fondant will be, but all the crystals must be dissolved before the syrup comes to the boil, or you are sure to have trouble arising from recrystallization or graining; whilst your syrup is boiling add a few drops only of acetic acid, boil to the soft ball, and then quickly pour on to a very clean marble slab previously well sprinkled with water, and with iron or steel bars placed so as to form a square or oblong space for the sugar. Sprinkle also a little cold water on the surface of the sugar <??> it will keep it from forming a hard surface and make it easier to work after; when nearly cold lift up the iron bars, and with a scrape clean them, and also scrape the sugar all into the middle of the slab; then with a flat iron or wooded spattle work it from the sides to the middle; that is, with a pushing motion collect the sugar from the outside of the mass and quickly and continually turn it over on to the centre by a backward motion.

This will take some little time, but by and by the sugar will begin to look white, and will continue to do so, only more so, until after a little it will become quite opaque and hard; then carefully scrape it off the spattle and slab; put away ready to use as may be required.

CREAM FONDANT-NO. 3. (BY MR. E.G. HARRIS.) It will be best to try a small quantity first, until you get experience; so we will start with, say, seven pounds broken loaf sugar (Say's loaf is best, but Tate's crushed is good, but must be sifted to remove all fine). Put the seven pounds sugar into the stewpan with one pound liquid glucose and about a pint and a half of water. Put the lid on and stand the stewpan on one side for an hour, by which time the sugar will be nearly dissolved. Now put on to the stove and bring up to the boil. Be careful that no lumps remain undissolved when the boiling point is reached. Keep the sides of the stewpan washed down by dipping the fingers of the right hand into cold water, and then with your fingers clearing off any sugar that may adhere to the stewpan. After well washing the sides down, and skimming off any dirt or scum that may rise to the surface, it is best to keep the cover on the stewpan for some little time, then the steam will be sure to keep the sides clean; so place the cover that the bulk of the steam may escape, or it will condense and fall back into the sugar. Boil quickly as you can until the sugar reaches the ball. To try this, dip your fingers into a basin of cold water, then into the boiling sugar and back into the cold water, carrying some sugar on your fingers; and when you can roll up the soft and sticky mass on your fingers into the form of a ball or marble that will just, but only just, retain its shape, it is ready for your purpose. It is not needed to be boiled quite so high as the ball for fondant making, but I bring it back, slightly, later on, as I will show you. Before the sugar is quite finished boiling, have your slab well washed and dried, and ready to use; and when the sugar is nearly boiled enough rub a little cold water all over the slab and arrange the bars to form either a square or an oblong, so that the sugar, when poured on, shall be about half an inch thick. Now pour quickly on the slab, and sprinkle all at once over the surface a little cold water, until the heat of the sugar causes the water to vaporise, and steam arises. This will produce a wet surface all over the sugar, and prevent a thick skin forming, and also reduce the tendency to graining. My reason for boiling up to the ball was to enable me to put this little water on the boiled sugar, and thus bring it back to the pitch to which I wanted it.

Do not scrape out the stewpan, because the sugar so scraped out will be slightly grained, and will cause the clear sugar on the slab to grain more or less if added to it. Therefore put a little water into the stewpan and place back on the stove, cover down with lid, and the result after a little boiling will be a clean stewpan and some clear surup which will be useful in many ways; reducing the fondant to the proper thickness, etc., when being used. Do not touch the sugar on the slab until it is nearly cold, say about forty-five minutes after you put it there, but that must depend on temperature of the place, etc. (If the sugar is too cold, you will have great difficulty in beating it up, and if too hot, the graining will take place too quickly, and the crystals be much too large. The re-crystallization should be so fine that grittiness or graining is not perceptible, but the mass should be beautifully white and creamy.) Now take away the iron bars and scrape them free from sugar; take the large spattle in hand and scrape the mass into the middle of the slab, and proceed to work it well by ever bringing the sides into the middle, with a long sweep at the side, collecting the sugar on the spattle, and then bring back the spattle over the top of the centre, reversing the spattle as you do so, and leaving the sugar so collected on the top each time. In a short time the sugar will begin to look milky, and, later on, creamy. And now, if you please, boss, put in all the work you are able for about ten minutes, and then you will see before you a mass of bright, white, creamy, rocky looking sugar, and if you break off a piece you will find it quite soft and short, and in your mouth, will melt quite readily and taste creamy. Scrape the slab quite clean, bringing all the small pieces together, and press them into the main lump. Put altogether into the earthenware pan, and cover down closely; it will then come back a little, and become a little softer.

GENOISE CAKE. 3/4 pound of sugar. 3/4 pound of butter. 13 eggs. 2 1/4 pound of flour. Small half-cup of milk. 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Flavor with almond or vanilla.

Cream the butter and sugar together same as for pound cake, add the eggs 2 at a time and beat in, then the milk and the flour with powder in it. This cake is used in all sorts of ways, either in moulds, or cut in squares, or spred in sheets, it is tougher but lighter than pound cake, and is cheaper in proportion to size of cakes.

MADEIRA CAKE. 1 1/2 pound of fine granulated sugar. 1 pound of butter. 16 eggs. 1 3/4 pound of flour. Flavor with lemon.

Mix same as pound cake, by stirring the butter and sugar together till white and creamy and then beating the eggs in, 2 at a time, and the flour last. Bake in muffin pans or patty pans with strips of citron on the top of each cake. A slight dredging of sugar on top of each cake before baking makes them glaze and look richer.

MADEIRA CAKE--RICHER. 1 pound of sugar. 1 pound of butter. 12 eggs. 1 pound 2 ounces of flour. Lemon flavor. Citron strips to bake on top. Mix up same as pound cake and the Madeira cake of the previous recipe. VICTORIA CAKE. 1 pound of fine granulated sugar. 16 eggs. 1/2 pound of butter. 3/4 pound of flour.

Separate the whites from the yolks, beat the whites quite firm, add the sugar in portions and continue beating, making it the same as kiss meringue mixture; stir up the yolks, then mix them in, then the flour, and melt the butter and stir it in last. Bake in shallow moulds, like sponge cake, and in sheets to be cut in diamonds and iced over.