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Millefleur Drops
For all sugar drops the sugar should first be sifted through a fine sieve, and then through a very fine one to sift out all the powder that is not required in making them. Put the necessary quantity of sugar into a basin, and mix in by degrees with a spoon sufficient water to make a paste of such a consistency that it will easily drop from the spoon and leave none sticking on it. Pour the paste into a bright sugar-pan, place it on the stove and stir it with a spatula until the sugar is dissolved and on the point of boiling. Then remove it at once, and stir in a sufficient quantity of essence of millefleur to flavor it, and with a wire in the right hand, and the pan in the other, drop off small pieces, cutting them with the wire and allowing them to fall on thick cartridge paper, a marble slab, or a tin or copper plate. This is the old-fashioned and homely style of making drops. Place the drops away to cool for about two hours, and remove them from the paper or plate by draining the former, and by using a thin spatula for the latter; pack them away in bottles or boxes, and keep them in a cool dry place until they are wanted.
This is a fondant-style sugar drop: barely dissolved sugar paste, flavoured off the heat and dropped into buttons. Everything depends on not letting it boil.
- The hinge: never let it boilThe paste comes off the heat the instant the sugar is dissolved and the surface begins to shiver; the text says to remove it at once. Let it actually boil and the syrup concentrates further, which is likely to give harder, coarser drops than intended.
- The sugar and the siftingThe text asks for two siftings, coarse then very fine, to take out "all the powder that is not required"; it does not say why. Modern superfine (caster) sugar needs no sifting; if you use confectioners' sugar, note that its cornstarch changes the texture and it is not what is meant here.
- Water proportionNo quantity is given because the cook is judging by eye: enough water that the paste drops easily from the spoon and leaves nothing sticking to it. Add water a spoonful at a time and stop at that point, since a wet paste spreads into flat discs.
- "A bright sugar-pan"A sugar pan, generally copper, kept scoured bright so it heats evenly and shows the state of the sugar. A heavy stainless or copper saucepan does the same job. Keep it scrupulously clean; dirt or grease in the pan does sugar work no favours.
- Essence of millefleur"Thousand flowers" was a nineteenth-century compound floral flavouring; its exact make-up varied from house to house. Buy only a food-grade flavouring; perfumer's or soapmaker's millefleurs oils are not edible. Orange flower water is the closest thing on a modern shelf, but it is dilute, so allow for the extra liquid.
- The wireA length of thin wire held taut to shear each drop cleanly off the pan lip. A small paper cone or a piping bag with a plain tip is easier and gives more even drops; a teaspoon works but leaves tails.
- Cartridge paperA heavy drawing paper. Parchment or a silicone mat is easier and lets you lift the drops without the "draining" the text describes, whatever exactly that manoeuvre was.
- Cooling and storageTwo hours at room temperature is about right; do not refrigerate, as condensation dissolves the surface. Airtight containers in a cool dry place, layered with parchment, will keep them a few weeks before they harden.
The recipe itself calls this "the old-fashioned and homely style of making drops," a plain hand method set against the mechanical fondant depositing that was coming into commercial candy production by the late nineteenth century. The flavour name is French for "thousand flowers," a compound floral essence sold by perfumers and confectioners alike, one of a range of floral flavourings that included rose, violet and orange flower. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated maître d'hôtel, gathered a great deal of professional confectionery work into his 1896 cook book.