CHOCOLATE DATES.
Haveyou ever tasted chocolate dates? If so, these directions will be almost needless to you, for I fancy that you will not have stopped at a taste, but will have tried and found out a way to manufacture them for yourself. But so far as I know, these dates are, as yet, quite a home-made sweet, and they are so delicious and so wholesome that they ought to be more widely known. Here then is the recipe. Any sort of dates and any sort of chocolate may be used, but the best results are got from the best materials in confectionary even more than in other work. Take then a pound of Tunis dates, either bought in the familiar oblong boxes or by the pound. Leave out any which are not perfectly ripe; the soapy taste of one of these paler, firmer dates is enough to disgust anyone with dates for ever. Wipe the others very gently with a damp cloth (dates are not gathered by the Dutch!), slit them lengthwise with a silver knife, but only so far as to enable you to extract the kernel without bruising the fruit. Then prepare the chocolate. Grate a quarter of a pound of best French chocolate, add an equal weight of fresh icing sugar, two tablespoonfuls of boiling water, and mix in a small brass or earthenware saucepan over the fire until quite smooth, only it mustnotboil; last of all add a few drops of vanilla.
Then put your small saucepan inside a larger one half filled with boiling water, just to keep the chocolate fluid until all the dates are filled. Take up a little of the mixture in a teaspoon, press open the date, and pour it neatly in. There must be no smears or threads of chocolate if your confectionary is to look dainty. When about a dozen are filled, gently press the sides together, and the chocolate should just show a shiny brown ridge in the middle of the date. Place on a board in a cool place to harden; they may be packed up next day.
Almost as nice as chocolate dates are nougat dates. The foundation for the nougat is the same as for American candies: the white of one egg and an equal quantity of cold water to half a pound of sifted icing sugar, all mixed perfectly smoothly together. Then chop equal quantities of blanched walnuts, almonds, Brazils, and hazel nuts together, mix with the sugar in the proportion of two thirds of nut to one of the sugar mixture, and leave until next day in the cellar. By that time the nougat will be firm enough to form into kernels by gently rolling between the hands; if it sticks, your hands are too warm. It is best to do this part of the work in the cellar. Having stoned and first wiped your dates, put in the nougat kernels, gently pressing the sides together; they will harden in a short time, and very pretty they look packed alternately with the chocolate dates in fancy boxes. Tunis dates do not keep good much longer than two months, the grocer tells me; we have never been able to keep them half that time to try! Of course, you can use the commoner dates, which are very good to eat, but hardly so nice to look at as the others, because on account of their more sugary consistency it is impossible to fill them so neatly as the moister Tunis dates. Tafilat dates are somehow too dry and solid to combine well either with nuts or chocolate.