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Fondant Candies: Center
Center Cream II 2 cups sugar 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 cup hot water White 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Put sugar, water, and cream of tartar in saucepan, stir until mixed, and bring quickly to boiling point. Wash down sides of saucepan with a piece of cheesecloth or a butter brush dipped in cold water, removing every crystal, and rinsing brush in water as needed. If crystals remain, they are likely to make the fondant grainy. Cover until it has boiled two minutes, remove cover, put in candy thermometer, and cook to 236 degree F., or until it forms a soft ball when tried in cold water. Pour on a marble slab, large platter, or white agate tray that has been slightly moistened by being wiped with a damp cloth, and let stand undisturbed until candy is nearly cool. Beat egg until stiff, pour on top of candy, add vanilla, and work with broad spatula until very white and creamy. Just before it begins to set, turn it over and over very slowly, working from the edge. When firm, shape at once into small balls, working chopped nuts into it if desired. Drop into confectioners' sugar, rolling around until ball is thoroughly covered, lay on waxed paper, and dip at once in melted chocolate.
This center cream may be melted over hot water and molded in starch, but centers will not be quite as soft and creamy.
Maple Center Cream 1 1/2 cups maple sugar 1/4 teaspoon glycerine 3/4 cup white sugar 3 drops acetic acid 1 cup water White 1 egg Put both kinds of sugar and the water in saucepan, stir until dissolved, add glycerine, and stir again. Wash down sides of saucepan with a piece of cheesecloth or a butter brush dipped in cold water, removing every crystal. Add acetic acid, cover, and boil two minutes. Remove cover, and boil to 238 degree F., or until it forms a soft ball when tried in cold water. Finish like Center Cream II.
BONBONS The name bonbon is given commercially to a candy that is from one to one and one half inches in diameter, and has an outside coating of fondant, and a center of fondant or other candy, with or without nuts and fruit. Fondant centers are most commonly used, and their preparation is not difficult. Many other kinds of centers may also be coated with fondant, and with different kinds of fondant coating and a few decorations, a large variety of bonbons may be readily secured.
Centers for Bonbons Bonbon centers may be made from any of the fondants or creams given in this chapter or the chapter on Uncooked Candies. Remove the desired amount of fondant from the jar in which it was put to ripen, and color and flavor as suggested below. If firm enough, shape in small balls with a piece of nut, cherry, or other fruit in the center. Leave on a board covered with wax paper until firm enough to dip. It is sometimes wise to let them remain overnight. If too soft to shape, as Center Cream I and II may be, put in a double boiler over hot water, and stir constantly until thin enough to pour. It should be warm but not hot. Prepare starch molds as explained below. A small piece of nut, cherry, or other fruit may be put in each mold. Put the melted fondant into the impressions in the starch, and leave until firm. Remove from starch, and centers are ready to dip.
To Mold in Cornstarch Sift cornstarch lightly into a shallow cake pan placed in a large pan or tray. Very gently level off the top with a long stick, knife, or ruler. Make impressions in the starch with small plaster molds bought for the purpose from a confectioners' supply house, and fastened to a strip of wood; or with the handle of a knife, a thimble, or other object of the desired size. In making impressions, the molds each time must be slightly pushed away from the preceding impressions, that they may not be disturbed. Pour the liquid candy into the impressions with a teaspoon, or pour candy into a warmed confectioner's funnel, and let it run out into the impressions, checking it by lowering into the opening the stick that comes with the funnel. Leave until firm, remove candies from cornstarch into a large sifter, shake well, and remove remaining starch with a clean brush.
A cheap grade of cornstarch may be provided, and if kept in a closed jar or tin, it may be used over and over again. Flour may be used instead of cornstarch if more convenient, but it is not so satisfactory. Dipping Bonbons Put the desired amount of fondant in small saucepan or double boiler, set in a larger saucepan of hot water, and stir constantly until melted. Flavor and color as suggested below. Add a few drops of cold water if necessary, to make it thin enough for dipping. The fondant should not be allowed to become hot. Have tray of centers on table at the left, piece of waxed paper on board or tray at right, and the fondant, over hot water, between. With the left hand drop one center at a time into the melted fondant. With a candy dipper, in the right hand, stir until center is entirely covered, then lift up, and put on paper, making a coil on top of each bonbon with the dipper. The whole process of dipping must be done as quickly as possible, and the fondant must be stirred frequently. When the fondant becomes too thick, add a few drops of cold water, and stir well. Occasionally put back on the fire until the water boils underneath. Chopped nuts, a bit of cherry, ginger, or other decoration may be put on top of each bonbon before the fondant hardens. More fondant should be melted than is required for dipping, that the center may be rolled about and completely covered. The remainder, after all the centers are coated, may be remelted and dropped from a spoon on waxed paper in rounds the size of a half dollar, or be poured into a small buttered pan, and when firm, cut in squares; or shredded cocoanut may be mixed with it, and it can be dropped in rough heaps on wax paper.
Coloring Fondant When coloring is to be added to plain fondant, take a small portion of color paste on the end of a toothpick, and mix with a small portion of fondant, then mix, a little at a time, with the remaining fondant, using a spatula, until the desired shade is secured. Care should be taken that color is not too deep, as light shades only are desirable for candies.
Flavoring Fondant Flavoring extracts should be added to plain fondant, very carefully, until the desired flavor is secured. With some flavors only a drop is necessary, while with others one or two teaspoons may be required.
Two fondant center creams, plus the book's general directions for molding, dipping and finishing bonbons. The center creams themselves cannot be recommended as written, for the reason given first; the surrounding technique notes are still worth reading.
- The raw egg white is the problemIn both center creams the syrup is cooked to 236-238F, poured out, and left until nearly cool before a stiffly beaten raw egg white is worked in. The egg white is never brought anywhere near a temperature that would kill Salmonella, and under the book's general bonbon directions the shaped centers may then stand at room temperature for hours or overnight before dipping. Sugar concentration alone does not make an uncooked egg white safe here. Use a current fondant or cream-center recipe instead.
- Acetic acid in dropsThe maple center calls for "3 drops acetic acid" with no strength given. Household vinegar is roughly 5 percent acetic acid; glacial acetic acid is over 99 percent and is corrosive to skin, eyes and airway. Because the original does not say which is meant, the quantity is not interpretable, and glacial acid is not a domestic ingredient.
- GlycerineFood-grade glycerine (glycerol) is a humectant, used here in the maple cream to hold moisture and discourage the syrup from setting grainy. It is still sold for confectionery and cake work, but the USP food-grade product is what is wanted, not the industrial or soap-making grade.
- "White agate tray"Agateware is enamelled sheet steel, the speckled enamel pans of the period. It stands in here for the marble slab: a broad, cool, non-absorbent surface that pulls heat out of the syrup quickly. A marble or granite counter, or a chilled sheet pan, does the same job.
- Starch moldingCasting soft centers in a tray of sifted cornstarch is the domestic version of the confectioner's "mogul" line, and it works because dry starch absorbs a little surface moisture and holds a crisp impression. The reused starch is a legitimate practice in a candy shop but it is not sterile after repeated use; keep it dry and discard it if it clumps.
- Candy dipper and confectioner's funnelThe dipper is a small wire fork or loop; a plain dinner fork or a chocolate-dipping fork substitutes. The funnel with a plug-stick that regulates flow is still sold as a candy or batter funnel, and a piping bag with a plain tip does the same work.
- Why the crystals matterThe insistence on washing every sugar crystal from the pan sides is the one piece of technique in these pages that has not changed. A single stray crystal seeds the syrup and turns the whole batch sandy; cream of tartar is added for the same reason, inverting a little of the sucrose so it resists crystallizing.
- Maple sugarMaple sugar is now a specialty item. The book measures it by the cup without saying in what form it is to be had, so modern granulated maple sugar may not measure the same as whatever the original cook was scooping.
Fondant is the foundation stone of the American candy book, and this chapter shows why: one cooked sugar syrup, worked until it turns opaque and creamy, becomes centers, coatings, patties and cocoanut heaps depending only on what is stirred into it. The word bonbon is generally traced to a reduplication of the French bon, and is often said to have originated in children's talk for something good; by the time this book was written it had become a trade term with a specification attached, as the text says: an inch to an inch and a half across, a fondant shell, a center of anything. Home candy manuals leaned hard on this kind of shop vocabulary and shop equipment, down to plaster molds bought from a confectioners' supply house and starch trays reused batch after batch. The egg white in these particular centers is a period trick for a softer, whiter cream, and it is the one part of the method that has not survived scrutiny.