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Assorted Chocolates: Candied
Chocolate-dipped Candied Grapefruit Peel Prepare Candied Grapefruit Peel, dip each grapefruit straw separately in melted coating chocolate, and lay on wax paper to dry. Chocolate Peanut Butter Creams 1/2 cup fondant 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 3 tablespoons peanut butter Few grains salt Coating chocolate Mix fondant, peanut butter, salt, and vanilla with a spatula on marble slab or plate until thoroughly blended. Shape in small balls, and dip in melted coating chocolate.
Chocolate Peppermints I Fondant Oil of peppermint Coating chocolate Melt fondant over hot water, flavor to taste with one or more drops of oil of peppermint, and drop from tip of spoon on waxed paper, or into starch impressions the size and shape of peppermints. When firm, dip in melted coating chocolate.
Chocolate Peppermints II 2 tablespoons hot top milk 1/2 teaspoon melted butter 2 cups confectioners' sugar 3 drops oil of peppermint Mix hot milk, one and one half cups sifted confectioners' sugar, butter, and peppermint, add more sugar as needed to make stiff, and then knead on a marble slab or a board for ten minutes, or until candy is creamy in texture. Shape with the hands into balls, or roll out on a board, and cut with small round cutter, and dip in melted coating chocolate.
Pignolia Chocolates 1/2 cup pignolia nuts Few grains salt 1/2 cup fondant Melted coating chocolate 1 tablespoon almond paste Chopped pignolia nuts Place half a cup pignolia nuts in oven, and bake until a delicate brown. Chop fine, mix evenly with fondant, almond paste, and salt, shape in small balls, dip in melted coating chocolate, and roll at once in unroasted chopped pignolia nuts.
Other nuts may be substituted for the pignolia nuts. Three-in-One Chocolates Filberts Fondant Candied cherries Vanilla Coating chocolate Cover filberts with boiling water and leave two minutes. Drain, cover with cold water, remove skins, and dry on a towel. Flavor fondant with vanilla, and shape in balls the size of the nuts. Dip first a nut, then a cherry, then a ball of fondant in melted coating chocolate, place close together on oilcloth or wax paper, and join with a line of chocolate.
Chocolate Truffles Fondant or center cream Milk chocolate Shredded cocoanut Make very small centers from any of the recipes for fondant or center cream in Chapter V, dip in melted milk chocolate, then roll at once in shredded cocoanut, chopped fine.
Chocolate Washington Pies Fondant Coating chocolate Raspberry or strawberry jam Put a piece of firm fondant on a marble slab or bread board, roll out one fourth inch thick, cover half of it with stiff raspberry or strawberry jam; on top place remaining layer of fondant, and cut out with small round cutter. Leave until dry, and dip in melted chocolate.
The trimmings may be gathered up, and worked together into little balls which may also be dipped in chocolate or in melted fondant.
These are all fondant centers finished in a chocolate shell, so the whole chapter hinges on one skill: getting the coating right. A few of the ingredients and vessels have changed names since the book was written.
- Coating chocolateIn this period "coating chocolate" meant chocolate sold ready for dipping. Where it was true chocolate it had to be handled at controlled temperature, much as couverture is today: melted to about 115F, cooled to about 80F, then rewarmed to roughly 88-90F for dark and a little lower for milk. Modern confectioners' coating (compound coating, made with vegetable fat) needs no tempering and will set firm without it; it is the easier choice but tastes flatter.
- Melt over hot water, not direct heatEvery one of these calls for melted chocolate. Use a bowl over barely steaming water and keep every drop of water and steam out of it — chocolate seizes into a grainy paste on contact with moisture.
- Oil of peppermintThis is the essential oil, several times stronger than peppermint extract. Three drops for two cups of sugar is correct for the oil; if you only have extract you will need considerably more — start with about a quarter teaspoon, added a little at a time to taste.
- Top milkThe richer, cream-heavy milk from the top of unhomogenized milk. Half-and-half is the closest substitute; whole milk will work but gives a slightly less creamy center.
- Pignolia and filbertsPignolia are pine nuts, filberts are hazelnuts. The book gives no oven temperature; around 350F for 5-8 minutes will do, and watch them — they are high in oil and go from pale to burnt very quickly.
- Starch impressionsThe peppermint recipe assumes a tray of dried cornstarch with hollows pressed into it, the standard commercial method for casting soft centers. Dropping from a spoon onto waxed paper works as well for home quantities.
- Marble slabMarble is called for because it draws heat out of fondant fast, keeping the sugar crystals fine. A chilled granite counter or a large flat baking sheet set on ice does the same job; wood is workable but slower.
- Yield and keepingHalf a cup of fondant will make perhaps a dozen and a half small centers, depending how small you shape them, so each recipe here is a modest single tray. Store the finished candies in a cool room in a single layer, not the refrigerator, where condensation will dull and streak the chocolate.
Home candy-making books proliferated in the United States in the early twentieth century, when reliable dipping chocolate and confectioners' sugar became available at retail and a marble slab was a plausible kitchen purchase. Chapters like this one are essentially a copy of the professional chocolate shop's workbench: one batch of fondant, endlessly varied by a flavoring, a nut, or a spoonful of jam, then dipped to hide the seams. The "Washington pie" name borrowed here comes from the nineteenth-century New England cake of two layers sandwiched with jam iature nod to it, one might guess, with fondant standing in for sponge. Candied grapefruit peel appears too, though the book gives no reason for its inclusion.