Home › Assorted Chocolates › Assorted Chocolates: Creams
Assorted Chocolates: Creams
Roast Almond Chocolates Coarsely chop roasted almonds, mix with melted milk chocolate to make a thick paste, and drop with a spoon in small pieces on wax paper. Bittersweet Chocolate Creams Center Cream II 1 pound sweet coating chocolate 1/2 pound bitter chocolate 1 teaspoon vanilla Make center cream and shape in small balls. Put both kinds of chocolate in upper part of double boiler, and prepare for dipping as explained in the first part of this chapter. Just before beginning to dip, add vanilla and beat thoroughly. Dip centers one at a time, and remove to wax paper. Use coating as cold as possible in order to retain the gloss.
Chocolate Butterscotch Creams Make Cream Butterscotch Balls and leave mixture in the buttered pan. Cover with melted fondant flavored with vanilla, and when firm cut in small pieces, and dip in melted coating chocolate.
Chocolate Coffee Beans Coating chocolate Fresh roasted coffee beans Melt chocolate over hot water, being careful that not a drop of water gets into the chocolate; then beat it until cool. Dip freshly roasted coffee beans in the chocolate; lift out with a fork, and drop on wax paper or marble slab to harden. Blanched almonds or Brazil nuts, filberts, peanuts, pecans, or walnuts may be coated in the same way.
Cocoanut Chocolate Ruffs 1/4 pound coating chocolate 1 1/2 cups cocoanut Melt chocolate over hot water, and stir in all the long strip cocoanut it will coat and hold. Take out pieces the size of a marble, and lay on wax paper to dry.
This is an excellent way to utilize a small amount of chocolate that may be left from dipping centers.
Chocolate Fig Creams 6 figs Confectioners' sugar Chop figs finely, and slowly add sifted confectioners' sugar until mixture is stiff enough to mold into small balls. Shape, let dry, and dip in melted coating chocolate.
Chocolate Fig Paste 1/4 pound figs 3/4 cup fondant Sweet coating chocolate Put figs through meat chopper, and mix with fondant, kneading together until perfectly smooth. Shape in small balls, and dip in melted coating chocolate. Jelly Chocolates 1 cup apple jelly 1/4 cup cold water 2 tablespoon gelatine 1 teaspoon orange extract 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract Melt apple jelly over hot water, add gelatine soaked in cold water, and extracts. Strain into small molds or into a bread pan half an inch thick. When firm, remove from molds, and if in a sheet, cut the jelly in cubes. Dip in melted coating chocolate.
Nut Fritters Mix broken pecan nut meats, roasted Spanish peanuts, or roasted almonds, with just enough cool chocolate to hold them together. Drop from tip of spoon in rough piles as large as a half dollar.
Chocolate Maraschino Cherries Maraschino cherries Fondant Coating chocolate Drain as many cherries as are wanted, and dip them in melted fondant. When all are covered, dip into melted coating chocolate. If a drop of syrup breaks through the chocolate, cover the spot with melted chocolate. The fondant will very soon liquefy in the center.
Chocolate Liquor Drops 2 cups sugar Few grains cream of tartar 1 cup water 2 tablespoons maraschino cordial Boil sugar, water, and cream of tartar to 235 degrees F. Add maraschino cordial, and boil up once. Cool for two minutes. Pour into starch molds, cover with starch, let stand twenty-four hours, brush off starch, and dip in melted coating chocolate, or crystallize.
Chocolate Marrons 1/3 cup marrons 1 cup fondant Coating chocolate Break marrons (preserved chestnuts) in two or three pieces, and dip in melted fondant; or crush marrons, mix with fondant, and shape in small balls. When firm, dip in melted coating chocolate.
Chocolate Marshmallows I Cut marshmallows across, and stuff with a pecan nut meat or a piece of Canton ginger. Press together and dip in melted coating chocolate. Chocolate Marshmallows II Marshmallows Melted coating chocolate Chopped blanched almonds Mix almonds with twice the amount of melted coating chocolate, and when beaten until cool, dip marshmallows, one at a time, and drop on wax paper. Chocolate-dipped Candied Orange Peel Prepare Candied Orange Peel, dip each orange straw separately in melted coating chocolate, and lay on wax paper to dry.
A dipper's chapter rather than a single recipe: a fondant or nut center, a pot of melted coating chocolate, and a sheet of wax paper. Almost everything here depends on the chocolate being handled correctly, so start there.
- Coating chocolate means tempered chocolateThe book's "coating chocolate" is a real cocoa-butter chocolate meant for dipping, and the instructions to melt over hot water, then beat it until cool, then "use coating as cold as possible in order to retain the gloss" are a working description of tempering. In practice, bring dark chocolate to about 115F, cool it to 88-90F while stirring, and hold it there while you dip. Chocolate dipped warm sets dull and streaky, which is exactly the loss of gloss the author is warning against.
- Not a drop of waterThis is the hinge of the whole chapter. Steam or a splash from the double boiler will seize melted chocolate into a stiff grainy mass that cannot be rescued for dipping. Use a bowl wider than the pan, keep the water below a simmer, and dry every spoon and fork.
- Modern compound coatingIf you buy "melting wafers" or "almond bark" instead, they contain vegetable fat rather than cocoa butter and need no tempering at all — just melt and dip. They set harder and taste flatter. The recipes work either way; the gloss instructions only matter with real chocolate.
- Temperature for the liquor drops235F is the low end of the soft-ball range. Use a calibrated candy thermometer and remember the reading drifts about 1F lower per 500 feet of elevation, so subtract accordingly or the drops will set solid instead of liquefying in the shell.
- Starch moldsThe "starch molds" for Chocolate Liquor Drops are impressions pressed into a shallow tray of thoroughly dried cornstarch, using a plaster or wooden dummy on a stick. The twenty-four-hour rest lets a thin sugar crust form while the interior stays liquid. Cornstarch scooped straight from a modern box is usually dry enough; if not, warm it in a low oven and cool it before use.
- Ingredients to translate"Cocoanut" is coconut, and "long strip" means the shredded or flaked kind, not fine desiccated. Marrons are chestnuts preserved in syrup, sold in jars as marrons au sirop. Canton ginger is stem ginger in syrup. Maraschino cordial is maraschino liqueur, the clear cherry liqueur of Dalmatian origin, not the sweet red syrup from a jar of cherries.
- The gelatine for jelly chocolatesTwo tablespoons of gelatine to a cup and a quarter of liquid is close to three envelopes of modern powdered gelatine — a deliberately firm, sliceable set, because the cubes have to survive being dipped. Bloom it in the cold water for five minutes before adding it to the melted jelly, and do not boil it afterward.
- Fondant-dipped cherries will leakThe note that "the fondant will very soon liquefy in the center" is the intended effect: the cherry syrup and moisture break the fondant down over a few days. Drain the cherries hard on paper first, and expect to patch a few shells with extra chocolate as the author says.
- Yield and storageA pound of coating chocolate will dip several dozen small centers, depending on how thickly it goes on. Store finished pieces in a cool room around 60-65F, not the refrigerator, where condensation will bloom the surface grey.
Hand-dipped chocolates were the prestige end of American home candy-making in the early twentieth century, and books of this kind arrived just as decent dipping chocolate became something a household could buy by the pound. The structure of the chapter is the structure of a commercial candy shop in miniature: make fondant, make centers, temper a kettle of coating, dip everything in sight. That is also why the chapter is so frankly thrifty: some of it is there, the author says, to use up chocolate left in the pot, and the fig pastes turn cheap dried fruit into something that looks like a boxed confection. Chocolate-covered coffee beans are here in the same matter-of-fact tone as the almonds and Brazil nuts, treated simply as one more thing a fork can lift out of a bowl of chocolate.