Old Fashioned Fig and Nut Chocolates

Fig and Nut Chocolates

fig and nut chocolates
This recipe is from Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes, a little chocolate cookbook printed in 1909.

5 figs,
3 or 4 tablespoonfuls of water or sherry wine,
½ a cup of English walnut meats,
Powdered sugar,
Fondant [see recipe below]
3 or 4 ounces of Baker's Chocolate,
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.

Remove the stem and hard place around the blossom end of the figs, and let steam, with the water or wine, in a double boiler until softened, then add the nuts and chop very fine. Add powdered sugar as is needed to shape the mixture into balls. Melt the chocolate, using enough to secure the shade of brown desired in the coating and add to the fondant with the vanilla. Coat the fig-and-nut balls and drop them with the fork onto a piece of oil cloth or waxed paper in the same manner as the cherry bon-bons. These may be dipped in "Dot" Chocolate instead of fondant.

FONDANT

4 cups of granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups of cold water
1/4 teaspoonful of cream of tartar

Stir the sugar and water in a saucepan, set on the back part of the range, until the sugar is melted, then draw the saucepan to a hotter part of the range, and stir until the boiling point is reached; add the cream of tartar or acid and, with the hand or a cloth wet repeatedly in cold water, wash down the sides of the saucepan, to remove any grains of sugar that have been thrown there. Cover the saucepan and let boil rapidly three or four minutes. Remove the cover, set in the thermometer—if one is to be used—and let cook very rapidly to 240° F., or the soft ball degree. Wet the hand in cold water and with it dampen a marble slab or a large platter, then without jarring the syrup turn it onto the marble or platter. Do not scrape out the saucepan or allow the last of the syrup to drip from it, as sugary portions will spoil the fondant by making it grainy. When the syrup is cold, with a metal scraper or a wooden spatula, turn the edges of the mass towards the center, and continue turning the edges in until the mass begins to thicken and grow white, then work it up into a ball, scraping all the sugar from the marble onto the mass; knead slightly, then cover closely with a heavy piece of cotton cloth wrung out of cold water. Let the sugar stand for an hour or longer to ripen, then remove the damp cloth and cut the mass into pieces; press these closely into a kitchen bowl, cover with a cloth wrung out of water (this cloth must not touch the fondant) and then with heavy paper. The fondant may be used the next day, but is in better condition after several days, and may be kept almost indefinitely, if the cloth covering it be wrung out of cold water and replaced once in five or six days. Fondant may be used, white or delicately colored with vegetable color-pastes or with chocolate, as frosting for small cakes, or éclairs or for making candy "centers," to be coated with chocolate or with some of the same fondant tinted and flavored appropriately.