Chocolate Fondants (Confectionery)

Member Name: badhandshakes

Product:	Confectionery
Date:	15/10/08 (194 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Delicious, impressive, and not too much hassle

Disadvantages: The obvious sugar-overload issue

A few of these in a nice box makes a lovely thoughtful present! But make more than you'll need, cuz you'll probably eat some along the way....

You will need:

Chocolate
Sugar
Glucose Syrup
Flavouring/Colouring
Ice Cube Tray (or a proper chocolate mould case, if you're posh)
Cooking brush type thing
Saucepan
Rolling pin


The Chocolatey Bit Part One

Crush and melt two large bars of chocolate- milk or dark (but not white, that doesn't work. Shame). I do this in the microwave, because it somehow feels more convenient, although it's probably not, really. So whichever way you like, really. I won't judge you. If you do want to do it in the microwave, in a glamour-less tupperwear container, stop it every 30 seconds or so and stir. And lick a bit (to test it, obviously) Then get a new spoon. My way creates more washing up, I suppose.

Then produce your ice cube tray, and brush a nice thick layer of melted chocolate into the bottom of each cube, and splash some up the sides too. Be thorough, double layer if necessary. I used cute heart-shaped ice cube trays from Ikea, they also do star shapes and some weird Tetris shapes. I've seen other novelty ice-cube trays as well, like the fruit shaped one you can get with Pimms, so it's worth a hunt if you're after interesting shaped chocolates... but don't worry too much, I'm sure no one will complain about cube shaped ones!

Stick your ice cube tray(s) in the fridge to relax for a while.


The Fondanty (more tricky) Bit

Over a medium heat, bring two cups of sugar, a cup of water, and a tablespoon of glucose syrup to the boil, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Cover and let boil for 2-3 minutes. Then uncover and boil until the fondant reaches the Soft Ball* stage. (or til 238 on your candy thermometer, but who's got one of those?)

*How To Test Fondant Stages

Drop a clean spoon-ful of hot mixture into a cup of very cold water- and examine the syrup. When you are at the Soft Ball stage, the fondant will form a ball in the water, rather than a thin thread. The ball should be soft and flattenable when removed from the water.

NEXT: remove your fantastic fondant (which won't be looking very appetising at the moment) from the heat, and pour on to a surface that has been sprinkled with cold water (experts in the genre would say a marble slab, but I used a chopping board to no great sacrifice in quality evident) Allow to cool for about ten minutes.

Then use a scraper to work the mixture over and over into itself. You can't over-knead it, so have fun. It should start to whiten and thicken. Continue working until it is creamy and too stiff to knead anymore. (if it crumbles, sprinkle some water into it).

Stick it all into an airtight container in the fridge overnight.

THE NEXT DAY: Hurrah, now to make it delicious!
Dust a surface with icing sugar, and roll out the fondant with a rolling pin. Cut lots of little slits into the mixture and add your flavouring (strawberry's always nice), and colouring if you fancy it. Then knead the fondant until it's all mixed through. Test it (tee hee), and then repeat as needed to get the intensity of flavouring you're after.

Get your ice cube tray, and squash little balls of the fondant into each chocolate shell. There might be some chocolate shells which have splintered slightly, in which case it's probably best that you eat them. For their own sake.


The Chocolatey Bit Part Two

Melt some more chocolate in a similar manner as you did before (or a different manner! Variety, and all that), and pour/brush it into the moulds to create a "bottom" for the chocolates. Use a knife to scrape it across so it's nice and smooth. Then stick 'em back in the fridge, and in a couple of hours you can start prising them out and showing them off to people!



Thrilling Trivia:

This type of fondant will last for ages in the fridge, and is even supposed to "mature" after a few days. So it's okay to make in advance.

The Ikea ice-cube trays I use are reasonably big- so they make Cadbury's creme egg styley chocolates, rather than little pop-several-in-your-mouth ones. You can fiddle with the amount of fondant Vs chocolate you use, to your personal taste.

For added effect, place in an ADORABLE box with some nice paper.

Summary: To share and enjoy!