Chocolate Covered Fondants

Chocolate covered fondants are very delicious, and a great activity to do with friends or family as it is so interactive.

The smooth and velvety fondant in the center of these chocolates can be changed to make all different colors and flavors to suit your taste buds.

• Medium sized pot
• Metal spoon
• Wooden spoon
• Pastry brush
• Metal bowl
• Chocolate truffle spiral or fork
• Marble slab (more about the marble in the next step)
• Candy thermometer
• Baking paper

For candy making you need a surface that will quickly cool the candy down so you can work with it. Most candy makers use marble or granite slabs, or bench tops, but if you don't have access to any of these you could try using a tray with ice under it to keep it cool.

The size of the marble that I have is 50cm (20in) square and 2.5cm (1in) thick. This size could probably take up to a double batch of this fondant, any more and you would need a larger slab.

Also the underneath of my marble was a little rough so I placed it on non-slip mats to stop it from moving and to protect the bench!

A quick note about marble. You should avoid using lemon juice or citric acid on the marble as it could cause pitting over time

To make the fondant you will need:

450g sugar*

1/2 cup Water

1/8 teaspoon Cream of Tartar

* I recommended using caster sugar as the sugar crystals will dissolve faster in the water. Caster sugar is regular sugar that is finer ground. If you can't obtain caster sugar where you are, you can make your own by blending the regular sugar in a food processor.

This recipe with make about 1 cup of fondant.

To a medium sized pot add your three ingredients, sugar, water and cream of tartar. Turn your heat to medium-low and gently stir until it starts to simmer. If you have any sugar crystals stuck to the side of your pot use a wet pastry bush to wash them off. This will help stop the candy from going grainy in the end product. Once the syrup reaches 114 C (237 F) take it off the heat and move on to the next step.

Once the sugar syrup has reached 114 C (237 F), take the pot off the heat and pour the syrup quickly onto the marble slab, do not scrap the pot! If you do it is more likely for the candy to go grainy. So just pour the syrup out in one go.

Get a little water on your finger tips and sprinkle the surface of the syrup, this helps stop it from forming a skin.

Using a wooden spoon, start to scrape the edges into the center of the candy as they cool faster, keep doing this until it starts to thicken and go white. You can also stir the candy in a circle to speed up the process.

Shock, horror! My fondant didn't work as shown in the first two photos.

After I had been stirring the cooling candy, it went grainy, hard and began to crumble.

One of the reasons this can happened is due to sugar crystals not been fully dissolved, which causes the sugar to crystallize again.

Don't throw it out yet...here's what you do to save it.

Put the crumbling candy into a clean pot with 1/2 cup of water on medium heat and stir until all the lumps have dissolved, wash down the sides with a wet pastry brush and then boil until the mixture reaches 114 C (237 F) and then you are good to go.

Once the candy starts to thicken and turn white things will happen very fast. It will firm up and clump into a ball, now it will be too stiff to mix with the wooden spoon so use your hands to kneed the fondant until smooth and velvety.

Let the fondant cool then put in a jar or bowl and cover with some plastic wrap for keeping*. This will keep for a long time so you could make a large batch and then store it in jars in the cupboard until you want to make bonbons or other sweets.

*You can skip covering the fondant with plastic wrap if you are making the chocolates straight away.

The easiest way to clean the marble is to use warm water and a cloth to gently dissolve the sugar and wipe it away.

Don't forget to soak the pot too!

There are so many different colors and flavors that you could make these fondant fillings into but today I am going with a strawberry and kiwi oil (it smells like tutti frutti :) and a hot pink!

You will also need:

Chocolate - I used compound milk chocolate (I melted 200g but only used about 100g)

Fondant - I used half of the fondant I made.

Add a few drops of flavoring and then taste a little to make sure its not too intense. Add as much or as little color as you wish, I was going for a pale pink but colors have a tendency to pour out very fast and that happened to me so I ended up with a hot pink. I am super pleased with how the pink turned out though.

Once you have colored and flavored your fondant, use your hands to roll little balls. I found it helpful to use a 1/2 teaspoon measure to get the same sized balls!

Stir your chocolate over a bain marie* until smooth. Take a fondant ball and drop it into the chocolate. Using a chocolate truffle spiral or fork cover it all over and then gently lift it out and tap to remove some excess chocolate, then tip it out onto some baking paper to set. Keep chocolate dipping until all the balls are covered.

* To make a bain marie fill a pot with boiling water about 1 inch high and then place your bowl with the chocolate on top of the pot.

Avoid getting water in the chocolate as that can cause the chocolate to go lumpy and seize

Once the chocolate has set, plate up the chocolate fondants and share them with your family or just enjoy them on your own...very dangerous to have around!