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Fondant Candies: Mints
Assorted Cream Mints Put plain fondant in upper part of double boiler, and melt over hot water, stirring constantly after fondant begins to soften. Do not allow water to boil or fondant to become hot, as it spoils the gloss. Add flavor and color according to amount of fondant used. Drop from tip of teaspoon on wax paper in rounds one and one quarter inches in diameter, or heat a confectioner's funnel by immersing it in hot water, and push a stick into the small opening. Pour in the melted fondant, and drop on wax paper by raising the stick and lowering it quickly when mint is the right size. In this way a large number of mints may be quickly and evenly molded.
Suggestions for Flavoring and Coloring Cream Mints Checkermints, color fondant pale pink, and flavor with oil of wintergreen. Chocolate Mints, add melted chocolate to melted fondant until the right color is obtained, and flavor with vanilla.
Clove Mints, color deep red, and flavor with oil of clove. Coffee Mints, use coffee fondant.
Lemon Mints, color pale yellow, and flavor with lemon extract. Lime Mints, color pale green, and flavor with oil of lime. Maple Mints, use maple fondant. Chocolate, coffee, and maple mints sometimes have a half walnut put in center, held in place with a drop of fondant. Orange Mints, color orange, and flavor with orange extract. Peppermints, leave white, and flavor with oil of peppermint. Raspberry Mints, color deep pink, and flavor with raspberry. Any of these mints may be dipped in melted fondant of the same color and flavor, or in melted coating chocolate.
Quick Checkermints 2 cups sugar 3/4 cup water Pink color paste 6 drops oil of wintergreen Put sugar, water, and color paste to make a delicate shade in saucepan, stir until dissolved, and bring to boiling point. Wash down sides of saucepan with a butter brush dipped in cold water, and boil until syrup spins a long thread. Add oil of wintergreen, or half a teaspoon of extract, beat until creamy, and drop from tip of spoon on waxed paper.
When mixture becomes too thick to drop, stir over the fire until it will run again, and drop more mints.
Repeat the warming and dropping until mixture is used. Quick Peppermints 2 cups sugar 3/4 cup boiling water 6 drops oil of peppermint Put sugar and water in granite saucepan, stir until dissolved, and bring to boiling point. Wash down sides of saucepan with a piece of cheesecloth or a butter brush dipped in cold water, and boil until syrup spins a long thread. Add peppermint, beat until creamy, and drop from tip of spoon on waxed paper. When mixture becomes too thick to drop, stir over the fire until it will run. Continue dropping and reheating until mixture is used. Center Cream I 2 cups sugar 1/3 cup corn syrup 1/2 cup cold water Put sugar, corn syrup, and cold water in saucepan, and proceed as in White Fondant I. The fondant may be worked before it becomes perfectly cold, and should be put in a jar before it becomes firm, as it is very sticky if left under a wet cloth and kneaded. This makes a soft smooth cream, and is best used by being molded in cornstarch, and coated with chocolate. Be very careful not to get it hot when melting it, or the centers will be hard, instead of creamy.
These are all variations on one skill: getting sugar to crystallize fine enough to be creamy. The fondant instructions are sound, but several of the cues and vessels need translating.
- The hinge: keep melted fondant lukewarmFondant remelted much above about 150F loses its gloss and, worse, its microscopic crystals dissolve and re-form coarse, so the finished mint sets hard rather than creamy. Hot water in the lower pan, not boiling, and pull it off while it is still barely warm to the touch.
- "Spins a long thread"This is the thread-to-soft-ball transition, roughly 230-234F on a candy thermometer. Below that the mints will not set; above it they turn grainy and stiff too fast to drop.
- Confectioner's funnelA metal funnel with a stick plugging the spout, the period tool for depositing even drops. A disposable piping bag with a small plain tip, or a squeeze bottle, does the same job; warm it first so the fondant does not chill and clog.
- Granite saucepanSpeckled enamel-coated steel, common in kitchens of the period. Any heavy nonreactive pan works. The "butter brush" is simply a soft pastry brush, used damp to wash sugar crystals off the pan walls before they seed the whole batch.
- Oils versus extractsFlavoring oils are far stronger than extracts, which is why the recipe offers six drops of oil or half a teaspoon of extract as alternatives. Buy oils sold as food flavorings rather than essential oils from a pharmacy or craft shop, and measure them by the drop as written.
- Coating chocolatePeriod "coating chocolate" was chocolate sold ready for dipping; modern couverture or a compound coating will both serve. If using real couverture, temper it, or the dipped mints will bloom and streak.
- Color pastePaste or gel colors, not liquid. Liquid food coloring in the quantity needed for "deep red" clove mints adds enough water to soften the fondant noticeably.
- Molding in cornstarchFor Center Cream I, dry cornstarch is pressed in a shallow tray, impressions are made with a shaped dowel, and the soft cream is deposited into them to firm up before dipping. Sift the starch and dry it in a low oven first, or it will cake onto the centers.
"Checkermints" preserves a New England plant name: checkerberry is Gaultheria procumbens, the creeping wintergreen of northeastern woods, and its oil is the source of the wintergreen flavor; by this period much wintergreen flavoring was synthetic methyl salicylate rather than oil distilled from the leaf. The recipe's own pairings -- pale pink with wintergreen, plain white with peppermint -- let a flavor be identified by sight in a mixed dish.