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Chocolate Drops
Two and a half cups pulverized or granulated sugar (or maple sugar may be used), one-half cup cold water; boil four minutes, place the sauce-pan in cold water, and beat till cold enough to make into little balls; take half a cake of Baker's chocolate, shave off fine and set it in a bowl set in top of boiling tea-kettle to melt, and when balls are cool enough, roll in the chocolate with a fork. This makes eighty. Or while making into balls, mold an almond-meat into the center of each ball, roll in coarse sugar, and you have delicious " cream almonds." Or, mold the unbroken halves of walnutmeats into the soft sugar, and when cold, roll in the chocolate. When finished, take out and lay on buttered paper until cold.- Mrs. O. M. Scott.
This is a plain uncooked-fondant recipe: a sugar syrup boiled to the soft-ball stage, beaten as it cools until it turns opaque and workable, then hand-rolled and dipped. Everything depends on the syrup reaching the right temperature and being left alone while it does.
- Boil four minutes means soft-ball stageFour minutes is a guide only; the real target is 238-240F on a candy thermometer. Boiling time varies with pan width and burner output, and undercooked syrup will never firm up into balls.
- Do not stir the boiling syrupOnce the sugar has dissolved, leave it undisturbed and wash any crystals from the pan sides with a wet pastry brush. Stray crystals seed the whole batch and give a grainy fondant instead of a smooth one.
- Pulverized sugarIn this period pulverized sugar meant finely ground granulated, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Ordinary granulated sugar, which the recipe also allows, is the closest match.
- Half a cake of Baker's chocolateThat refers to unsweetened baking chocolate, sold then in solid cakes whose weight varied; quarter-pound and half-pound cakes were both current, so this is somewhere in the region of 2 to 4 ounces. It is bitter and unsweetened against a very sweet centre, which is the intended contrast; a bittersweet couverture gives a glossier, less brittle coating.
- The bowl on the tea-kettleThis is a improvised double boiler. A heatproof bowl over barely simmering water works the same way, but keep water and steam out of the chocolate or it will seize.
- Setting the pan in cold waterCooling the syrup to about 110F before beating is what produces fine crystals and a creamy fondant. Beating it while still hot makes a coarse, sandy centre.
- Buttered paperParchment or a silicone mat replaces it, and needs no butter. Let the drops set at cool room temperature rather than in the refrigerator, where condensation dulls the chocolate.
- YieldEighty small drops, as stated, so the centres are small: on the order of a teaspoon of fondant each. The almond and walnut variants use the same fondant base.
Chocolate drops of this kind belong to the great age of American home confectionery, when a reliable candy thermometer was still uncommon in domestic kitchens and cooks timed their syrups by the clock and tested them by hand. The technique is fondant, the same beaten sugar cream that underlies peppermint creams, bonbons and the soft centres of boxed chocolates. Baker's chocolate, made in Massachusetts, was sold in solid unsweetened cakes to be shaved and melted, which is why the recipe calls for shaving rather than chopping. The Dixie Cook-Book credits its contributors by name, and Mrs. O. M. Scott's entry gives one base method with two or three variations appended, for cream almonds, walnut creams and plain drops.