No. 3645

Cordial Candies

Bonbons aux Liqueurs

These candies are cast in starch. First prepare the boxes of starch, impressed as explained in No. 3641; put two pounds of sugar in a copper basin, dissolve with three gills of water and stand it on the fire to cook the sugar to thirty-six degrees (syrup gauge); when the sugar attains this degree add a small cordial glassful of kirsch, maraschino or any other desired cordial, to bring the syrup back to thirty-two degrees, stirring it well. Now pour this syrup into a spring funnel (Fig. 759) and cast the candies in the starch impressions; put the filled box in the heater at a moderate temperature and leave for twelve hours. They should now have formed a sufficiently thick crust to allow them to be worked; remove carefully from the starch, brush one at a time with a very soft hair brush, and lay them at once on a grate to cool, then stand this grate on a candy pan and cover the candies with a cold thirty-two degree syrup; lay a piece of paper on top to keep the candies submerged. Put this candy pan in a mild temperature and leave for six hours. Then drain off the syrup, take out the candies to arrange them on a second grate and leave to dry. Instead of crystallizing these candies they can be iced with fondant (No. 58) flavored with cordial.

← No. 3644 Vanilla Cream Caramels, or with Tea or Coffe Candies & Bonbons No. 3646 Drops →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer is describing starch-mogul work: a supersaturated syrup is deposited into impressions in dry starch, where sugar crystallizes against the cool dry powder to form a thin shell around a still-liquid cordial center. Almost everything that can go wrong here goes wrong before the syrup reaches the starch.

The hinge: no agitation, no stray crystalsThe shell forms only if the syrup stays supersaturated and free of seed crystals until it hits the starch. Wash the pan sides down with a wet brush while it boils, and avoid stirring once the sugar is clear. Ranhofer does say to stir the cordial in well; do that briefly and without throwing syrup up the sides of the pan. A grained batch produces opaque, sandy lumps with no liquid center.
Degrees on the syrup gaugeThese are degrees Baumé read with a hydrometer, not temperatures. Thirty-six Baumé is roughly 66 Brix and thirty-two Baumé roughly 59 Brix, but Baumé readings depend on the temperature at which they are taken, and period gauges were not standardized; treat both figures as approximate and confirm with a refractometer if you have one.
Gills and pansThree gills is a scant 1 1/2 cups (about 350 ml) of water to 2 lb (900 g) sugar. The "copper basin" is an unlined sugar pan; a heavy stainless or copper pan works, but do not let the acidic cordial syrup stand in unlined copper after casting.
A small cordial glassfulGenuinely ambiguous. A cordial glass of the period held roughly 1 to 2 fl oz (30–60 ml), and the real instruction is the one Ranhofer gives: add enough to bring the syrup down from thirty-six to thirty-two degrees, checking the gauge as you go.
The starchThe starch for moguls must be bone dry and sifted; Ranhofer does not say which starch, though cornstarch was common in American confectionery of the period. Any residual moisture softens the impressions and dissolves the shell. Dry it in a low oven and cool it fully before making impressions, and re-dry and sieve it before reuse.
"The heater at a moderate temperature"This is a heater or warming cabinet (etuve), not an oven. Ranhofer gives no figure; the sense is warm and dry enough to keep the center fluid and the starch dry, well below any oven setting. An ordinary oven, even at its lowest, is far too hot.
The spring funnelA depositing funnel with a spring-loaded rod that plugs the spout between drops. A candy funnel, a small pitcher with a fine spout, or a squeeze bottle will do, provided the syrup is dispensed quickly and without splashing starch into the pool.
The crystallizing bathThe six hours under cold thirty-two-degree syrup is what builds the fine sparkling sugar crust on the outside. The paper on top is not decorative; the candies float, and any part left above the syrup finishes bald.
Alcohol and keepingRanhofer does not say to draw the pan off the fire before the cordial goes in, though adding it at that stage limits how much alcohol is driven off; the alcohol together with the high sugar concentration is what keeps the centers liquid. Finished bonbons are fragile; store them in a single layer in a cool dry place and expect them to weep if the shells are cracked.
YieldTwo pounds of sugar fills a great many impressions — on the order of 100 to 150 small bonbons, depending on the mold. Scale down at your own risk: small quantities of sugar syrup are harder to hold at a steady density.

A Little History

Liqueur bonbons cast in starch belong to the industrialization of confectionery in the nineteenth century; the starch-moulding method, in which trays of dried starch are stamped with plaster or wooden models and filled from a depositing funnel, was established professional practice in English and continental confectionery well before Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894, though its exact origins are not firmly documented. Ranhofer, for decades the chef of Delmonico's in New York, wrote the book as a complete professional reference, which is why the candy chapter reads like a workshop manual rather than a home cookbook -- it assumes a syrup gauge, a warming cabinet, and boxes of prepared starch already on hand. The flavorings he names are telling: kirsch from the cherry country of Alsace and the Black Forest, and maraschino, the marasca-cherry liqueur associated with Zadar on the Dalmatian coast, both fashionable imports in the Gilded Age.