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Fondant Candies: Creamed
Plain fondant, tinted green and flavored with almond, may be used instead of maple fondant, and the base dipped in chopped pistachio nuts. Creamed Fruits Candied fruits Fondant Put fondant in saucepan, add a few drops vanilla, and set over another saucepan of boiling water. Stir until melted, but not hot. Dip candied cherries, or pieces of candied pineapple, pears, or plums in the melted fondant, decorate top with a small piece of fruit, dry on waxed paper, and serve in paper cases.
Creamed Grapes Malaga or Tokay grapes Fondant Remove grapes from bunch, leaving stems as long as possible. Wipe carefully, dip one at a time in fondant that has been melted by stirring it in a saucepan over hot water, and place grapes on waxed paper to dry. Serve in paper cases. Creamed Strawberries Fresh strawberries Fondant Wipe selected strawberries, dip one at a time in fondant that has been melted by stirring it in a saucepan over hot water, and place strawberries on waxed paper to dry. Serve in paper cases.
Creamed Marzipan Almond paste Walnuts White of egg Fondant To almond paste add white of egg, a very little at a time, and work with a spatula until it is of the right consistency to shape. Form into small balls, press half a nut meat on each side of each ball, and dip in melted fondant colored and flavored as desired.
Creamed Marzipan Blocks Almond paste White of egg Rose color paste Raspberry extract Orange color paste Grated orange rind 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup water Melted fondant Paper cases To almond paste add white of egg, a very little at a time, and work with a spatula until it is of right consistency to shape. Divide in three portions; to one add rose color paste to make a deep pink, and a few drops of raspberry extract. To another portion add grated orange rind and orange color paste to make a good color. Roll pieces on slab, with rolling pin, one fourth inch thick and the same shape.
Boil sugar and water until syrup spins a thread. Brush pink layer of paste with syrup, cover with plain layer of paste, brush with syrup, and cover with orange layer. Press under a light weight, cut in cubes, dip in melted fondant, and serve in paper cases.
Glace Nut Creams Glace nuts Fondant Vanilla Almond extract Green color paste Prepare glace pecans or walnuts. Flavor a small portion of fondant with one quarter teaspoon vanilla and a few drops almond extract, and color green. Make into small balls, and press between two glaced nuts. Keep in a cold place, and use if possible the day they are made.
Nut Caramel Rolls Cut a sheet of Vanilla Caramel that is three eighths of an inch thick into strips three eighths of an inch wide and one inch long. Dip in melted fondant, and roll at once in finely chopped walnut meats. Candy, when covered with fondant, should be one and one half inches long.
Plum Creams 4 canned plums Confectioners' sugar Fondant Maraschino cordial Force plums through a sieve, and add confectioners' sugar to make a stiff paste. Shape in small balls, dry on waxed paper, and dip in melted fondant flavored with maraschino cordial.
A run of dipped confections built on one base: a bowl of fondant softened over hot water. Most are straightforward, but the two marzipan variants call for raw egg white in something that is never cooked.
- The raw egg whiteBoth Creamed Marzipan and Marzipan Blocks bind almond paste with uncooked white of egg, and nothing in either method brings it to a safe temperature — the fondant coating is deliberately kept below hand-hot, and the sugar syrup only brushes the surface. Raw shell egg carries a salmonella risk that a sugar-rich paste does not eliminate, and these sweets are meant to be held in paper cases for days. Use a current marzipan formula if you want to make them.
- "Melted, but not hot" is the hingeDipping fondant is worked warm rather than hot; the book gives no temperature. Overheat it and the fine sugar crystals dissolve and re-form coarsely, so it tends to dry dull, streaky and grainy instead of setting with a satin skin. Keep the pan over hot water off the heat, not over a live simmer, and stir rather than beat to avoid working in air.
- Thinning itFondant stiffens as it sits and as fruit chills it. Loosen with water, sugar syrup or a spirit a few drops at a time; adding more than that gives a coating too thin to cover and prone to weeping.
- "Spins a thread"In the Marzipan Blocks, the half cup sugar to quarter cup water is boiled to the thread stage, about 230 to 234F on a thermometer. It is used here only as glue between the layers of paste.
- Fresh fruit will not keepGrapes and strawberries release moisture that dissolves the fondant shell from the inside; they sweat and leak within hours. Dry the fruit thoroughly, dip the same day they are to be eaten, and expect a few failures. Malaga and Tokay were the firm, thick-skinned table grapes of the period — any firm seedless grape with a bit of stem left on works the same way.
- Color and flavor pastesRose and orange "color paste" are the concentrated gel colors still sold for confectionery; a small amount goes a long way and, unlike liquid colors, they add little water to slacken the fondant. Raspberry extract is still readily available; if you substitute a concentrated flavouring oil, use considerably less.
- Maraschino cordialThis is the clear cherry liqueur, not the syrup from a jar of maraschino cherries. If you substitute the syrup, cut back on any other liquid, since it is far sweeter and thinner.
- Paper casesSmall fluted candy or petit-four cups. They are structural as much as decorative: a freshly dipped center picks up lint and fingerprints, and the case lets you move the finished sweet without touching the shell.
- Yield and keepingQuantities are left to the cook throughout, and no yield is given. The glacé nut creams are explicit that these are day-of sweets; anything with fresh fruit or a sugar-glacé coating goes sticky in a humid kitchen.
Fondant was the workhorse of the American candy kitchen in the first decades of the twentieth century: one cooked sugar syrup, beaten to a white paste, then divided, tinted, flavored and used as a filling, a coating and a glue. Cooking-school books of the period treated it the way a pastry book treats pâte brisée, teaching it once and then listing dozens of variations, which is exactly the shape of this page. The reliance on candied cherries, pineapple, pears and plums seems to reflect a moment when glacé fruit was more of an everyday grocery item than a Christmas specialty, and the marzipan blocks, layered in pink and orange and pressed under a weight, look like a domestic echo of the striped almond-paste work associated with professional confectioners. The instruction to keep the nut creams cold and eat them the day they are made is a reminder that homemade candy of this kind was made for a specific occasion — a card party, a holiday table — not for the tin.