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Maple Fondant
1¼ lbs. maple sugar 1¼ lbs. sugar 1 cup hot water ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar Break maple sugar in pieces and add to remaining ingredients. Boil, and work same as White Fondant.
A one-line recipe that leans entirely on the White Fondant entry beside it in the original book. The quantities have also come out of the scanner badly, so start by reading them correctly.
- The quantitiesThe printed page gives 1¼ lbs. maple sugar, 1¼ lbs. granulated sugar, and ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar, as our text now reads. That is equal weights of the two sugars, so the maple flavour comes through as half the sweetness rather than dominating.
- Maple sugarHard cake or block maple sugar is still sold and is what the recipe means by "break in pieces." Maple syrup is not a substitute here: it carries far more water and will throw the boil off. Granulated maple sugar can be used and needs no breaking up.
- The temperature that mattersFondant is defined by its cooking point; the original would have used the cold-water soft-ball test. On a candy thermometer that is about 238-240F; a few degrees over and the finished sweet tends to be crumbly rather than creamy. Maple sugar scorches more readily than white, so keep the heat moderate once the syrup thickens.
- Wash down the panAny stray crystal on the side of the pan will seed the whole batch into grain. Cover the pan for the first minute or two of boiling so steam rinses the sides, or wipe them with a wet brush, and do not stir after the sugar has dissolved.
- Cream of tartarIt is there to invert part of the sugar and keep the crystals fine. Do not increase it; too much and the fondant will not set at all.
- Working itPour onto a marble slab or an oiled sheet pan without scraping the pot, let it cool undisturbed to about 110F (barely warm to the back of the hand), then work it with a bench scraper or wooden paddle until it turns opaque and stiff. Knead smooth by hand.
- RipeningThe original assumes you know this: wrap the mass in a damp cloth or plastic and leave it in a covered jar for a day before shaping. The texture improves markedly and the fondant becomes far easier to handle.
- YieldAbout 1½ lb of fondant, enough for roughly 40 small centers or patties. It keeps several weeks covered and cool.
Fondant, from the French fondre, to melt, was the foundation of the professional confectioner's craft in the nineteenth century: one boiled sugar base, worked to a fine crystal, then flavored, colored, or coated to yield dozens of different sweets. This recipe follows that logic exactly, leaning on the White Fondant entry and altering only the sugar. Maple sugar was a natural New England substitution, abundant in a region where sugaring off was an annual event and hard cakes of maple were a common pantry item rather than a specialty import. The cream of tartar is the older technique for controlling crystallization, used before commercial glucose and corn syrup became a common choice for the same job.