More uses of the potato.

20Marshmallows made with tomato may be intriguing, but lets face it, the tomato is never going to be the number one confectionery ingredient of choice, is it? Potato might make it though.
I once, many years ago, held a dinner party in which all the dishes were based on potatoes – although I stopped short of potato alcohol, for obvious reasons. I remember that I served after-dinner mints made with potato fondant. I have no idea what happened to the recipe for those mints, but I found a substitute in the marvelous book that gave us the tomato marshmallows - Candy-Making Revolutionized: Confectionery from Vegetables (1912)

Mints can be made from the potato fondant recipe in the book – just add peppermint oil to taste, and green colouring, if you must.

POTATO FONDANT

Uncooked Fondant. — Potato fondant is another base — even more useful than potato paste — upon which many confections may be built. There are two kinds — cooked and uncooked. To make the uncooked, boil or steam Irish potatoes, drain, and force them through a fine sieve. In all
candy-making with potatoes, these directions are of the utmost importance. Unless the potato is carefully forced through a fine sieve, the candy made from it will have hard and gluey spots after it has dried out. Mix one-half cupful of the potato so prepared with the unbeaten white of one
egg. Add gradually confectioner's sugar until the whole mass assumes the consistency of bon-bon cream. Several uses for potato fondant will be described below, but it may be substituted for French fondant in any of the confections of which that is a part.


Cooked Potato Fondant.— With one-half cupful of potato, prepared as for the uncooked fondant, very thoroughly mix two cupsful of sugar and thin with two-thirds of a cupful of milk. Place the mixture on an asbestos mat over the fire and cook until thick — to the sticking point. Pour the mass on a cold, damp marble and “cut in” like plain fondant. Knead small quantities at a time until the whole batch is smooth. Pack in tins lined with wax paper.

The fondant can be used without additional sugar and does not stick to the hands. It is particularly useful as a covering.

Potato fondant shows particular superiority over the almond paste in the making of small objects and all fine and thin work. The results are as attractive to the palate as to the eye, although candy modeled from potato fondant does not have the peculiar oily richness of the products fashioned from almond paste.


New Potato. — A particularly appropriate form in which to model the potato fondant is that of the new potato. Work the proper sized piece of fondant into as close an imitation as possible of the new potato. As this new potato has perhaps more of the fondant than many people will wish to eat at one time, several partial substitutions are possible. That statement, by the way, is no reflection upon the fondant, for any piece of candy, no matter how good, of the size of this is likely to be rather too much to be eaten at one time if of one flavor. Marshmallows, pitted dates with nut meats, pulled figs closely rolled, or English walnut meats are some of the things that may well be used as centers. Whatever is used should be rolled in enough of the fondant to make pieces of the desired size and form and then immediately rolled in dry cocoa. The result will be strikingly convincing — and good to eat.

Quotation for the Day.

Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.
Erma Bombeck