My brain is having a hard time wrapping around the fact that Halloween has come and gone and Thanksgiving is on it's way. Nonetheless, it's that time of year again. Time to make fondant for our hand dipped chocolates. This has been a family tradition for as long as I can remember. My mom's whole family would congregate at our house and make fondant and dip chocolates all together. I will never forget how exciting and fun it was. I remember the atmosphere of Christmas and the smell of the cooking fondant. Such fun, fond memories! Now, as my sisters and I carry on the tradition with our own children, I hear them talk about how much they love candy making time! They gather round for their chance at eating the candy off the wooden spoon and spatulas! I have no doubt that their memories will be just as fond as mine are when they get older. That makes my heart so happy.
I have a very sweet, loving, PATIENT aunt, who lives far away in Washington, and can't be here to make fondant with us. She has been asking me for 2 years now for my recipe and every year I get busy and forget to send it to her. Not this year baby! Not only is she getting the recipe, she's getting a full blown tutorial. I hope this makes it easy for you to follow, Ronna. And anyone else who wants to give it a whirl. ;)
Before you get started, make sure your kitchen is cool. I keep mine around 65-70 degrees. If you need to, crack a window.
Here's what you'll need to start:
Sugar, milk, HEAVY whipping cream, light corn syrup, butter (NOT margarine), a decent candy thermometer, and not pictured, a heavy pan. I'm so sorry, but have no idea what a "heavy" pan is made of, but to put it in simple terms, use a pressure cooker pan without the lid. You can't use a cheap aluminum, non-stick or stainless steel. The outcome of the fondant never works. I don't know why. If you don't have one, go to your local thrift store (DI, Goodwill) and see if you can find one. That's what I did. It was only $3. You'll also need, that I didn't take a picture of, 2 wooden spoons, measuring spoons and a flat ended spatula. (Man, you can tell I'm not a good tutorial maker)
Flavor extracts of your choice, crushed maraschino cherries and coconut are optional, but highly recommended.
For those of you thinking, "EW. Maraschino cherries!!?!!?", they're mostly for color and texture in the fondant. IF you are using them, you need to prepare them days in advance. You can buy them I have, already minced into tiny pieces, but if you can't find them like that, just buy a bottle from the grocery store and chop them in a food processor. I have a little tiny one that I use. Or you can do it with a food chopper or knife. Just make sure they're very chopped. You'll need one bottle or 1/4 cup out of a big jar like mine, for one batch of fondant. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of this part, but I haven't done my cherry fondant yet. Put a doubled paper towel on a plate and spread the minced cherries out on it. Take paper towels and put over the top of the cherries, sopping up all the liquid that you can. This takes several paper towels. I apply pressure with my hands to get every little bit of juice out that I possibly can. Then I leave them out on the counter for 2 or 3 days to dry. I'm not sure how humidity will affect this process. Just make sure they're dry as possible. I think a little bit of moisture in them would be OK, but you really don't want any as it will alter the consistency of the fondant and will make it hard to roll into balls and dip in chocolate.
Parchment paper and foil
OK, now that you have your ingredients, here's the recipe.
3 c. sugar
1 c. heavy whipping cream (Make sure it's HEAVY)
1/4 c. milk (at least 2 %)
2 T. butter
2 T. corn syrup
Put the heavy cream, milk, butter and sugar in your pan.
Turn your burner on to medium heat. Stir to combine and put the thermometer in the pan, making sure that the bulb of the thermometer is not touching the bottom of the pan. You want the temp of the candy, not the temp of the pan! Over or under cooking this is not an option! Pull up a stool, you are going to stir this CONSTANTLY until it comes to a boil. Make sure you DO NOT scrape the sides of the pan. Doing so will make the fondant crystallize. Just stir, stir, stir in the middle of the pan. It's tedious, but necessary.
When the fondant starts to boil, stop stirring and take the spoon out. Add 2 T. of corn syrup. Don't stir it in, just let the boil action do it for you.
Now it's just a waiting game. Watch your thermometer closely and cook the fondant to 226 degrees. No more, no less!! When it reaches temp, turn your heat off and take your pan to the marble slab.
VEEEEERY slowly pour the hot contents of your pan onto the cool marble slab. The slower you pour, the better. You DO NOT want it to run over the sides of the slab.
IF you pour a little to quickly, be ready with your flat ended spatula and scrape it back as much as you need to until it quits running. Although there are two people in this picture, it really isn't a two person job. We were just teaching our AWESOME sister-in-law how to make it. It was her first time and she was a little nervous.
Now your fondant has to cool. Another wait time. Don't go too far though. You don't want it to get cold. To see if your fondant is ready to stir, poke it a few times, in the center, with your finger. If the fingerprint fills in, it's still to warm. If the finger print holds (it my fill in a little bit, but not all the way), it's time to start stirring.
Before you stir it, scrape the fondant into the middle of the slab with your spatula.
Take your second wooden spoon and scrape the fondant off the spatula.
Once it's all gathered, start stirring! You'll want to hear air bubbles popping as you stir to cool if down. It won't always pop, just at the beginning.
Keep stirring....
and stirring. As you stir, it will spread out again. Gather it with the spatula into the center of the slab again and keep stirring. You'll have to stir, gather; stir, gather; stir, gather quite a bit. Stirring takes a while. At this stage, I've had the butter start to separate. Typically, you don't want that to happen, but if it does, it's not necessarily a lost cause, but it MIGHT be. Just keep stirring and see if it comes back together. If you can't get it back together, throw it away and start over.
As you're stirring, watch the fondant closely. When it starts turning opaque and begins to lose it's shine, stop stirring and add 2 cap fulls of the flavor you choose. If you're doing vanilla or coconut, don't add food coloring. Any other flavor, add the appropriate food color. You will also add any other ingredients at this point; cherries, coconut, chopped almonds, walnuts. pecans or whatever else you may want to add. You'll want to work fast because it's going to set up as you stir. Sometimes it happens really fast and other times you have to stir for a bit longer. I really have no idea what makes the difference.
This is what it should look like when it's done. It will be thick and creamy and will hold it's form. IF it happens to be crumbly, it will still work. Just mash it together in a ball.
Take a sheet of parchment paper and transfer the fondant from the slab to the paper. If you're doing vanilla for cashew logs, your steps will be different at this point. Skip down a little ways to see those instructions, labeled LOGS.
Wrap the fondant in the parchment paper. You can leave it in a mound, but I like to flatten it. It makes it easier to cut when you roll it into balls.
Next, wrap it in a sheet of foil, label it with it's flavor (and your name if more than one of you is making fondant) and put it in the freezer until you're ready to roll it and dip it!
And probably the most important part of the process, TASTE the perfection!! YUM! You'll seriously want to just eat it plain.
If you plan on doing several batches of fondant, one after another, make sure you wash all your utensils, the pan, thermometer and slab thoroughly with hot water and soap before starting a new batch. If you don't, the sugar in your next batch will crystallize and it won't set up right. You also need to make sure that your marble slab cools down. I usually rub a few ice cubes over it after I wash it to help it along. Just make sure you dry it thoroughly.
LOGS
When you buy your flavors, buy this clear vanilla extract. If the store doesn't have it, just buy the regular stuff. It will just discolor the fondant a little.
Once you get your fondant to the point of being set up on the slab, instead of transferring it to parchment paper, flatten it on the slab and evenly divide it with a knife. You can divide it as much or as little as you want, depending on how many logs you want to make. I would recommend to divide it into at least 10. Anything less than that will make HUGE logs. I generally like to divide it into 16.
Take each section of fondant and roll it into a log. Don't worry about making it look perfect. It won't stay that way. Once you cover it with caramel and cashews, you'll never know it didn't look perfect.
Individually wrap each log in parchment and then foil, then put them in the freezer to freeze.
I'll be posting a tutorial for the rest of the process for the cashew logs later, when I finish making them. These are to die for! You've gotta try them. Here's a picture of what they look like all done:
