Bourbon Chestnut Bonbons Recipes

Steps:

• In large bowl, combine margarine, confectioners' sugar, condensed milk, coconut, chopped walnuts and vanilla. Stir well. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours, or until mixture has thickened enough to roll into balls. Roll the mixture into 1-inch balls and place close together, but not touching, on cookie sheets. Freeze until hard.
• While bonbons are freezing, line a cookie sheet or flat surface with waxed paper. Combine chocolate chips and shortening in the top of a double boiler, over, not in, simmering water. Stir until melted. Using a toothpick or a fork, dip each bonbon in the melted chocolate. Place on waxed paper to dry. When chocolate has hardened, store bonbons in plastic bag in the freezer.

Steps:

• Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Add a splash of milk if the mixture looks a bit dry - it should come together as a dough.
• Line three baking sheets, dust lightly with flour, then roll and pat one-third of the dough out to the thickness of a £1 coin on each. Cover and freeze for 15 mins.
• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Slide the dough off the trays and put a new piece of parchment on each. Trim the edges of the dough to straighten, then cut into rectangles, roughly 6 x 3cm. Lift each one carefully onto the tray, leaving some space between them as they'll expand. Bourbons usually have a pricked pattern, so use a cocktail stick to do this if you want (not too many or they'll break up). Put the dough back in the freezer if it gets too soft.
• Bake for 8-10 mins, then leave to cool on the sheet as the biscuits will be soft when they're hot. Sprinkle over some sugar. Will keep for a week in an airtight container.
• Meanwhile, make the filling. Beat the butter and icing sugar together, then divide the mixture into three. Add the cocoa to one lot, a dot of pink colour to another, and leave the last one plain (add a little more icing sugar if you need to). Spoon each into a piping bag or a sandwich bag with the corner snipped off.
• When the biscuits have cooled completely, pipe the icings onto half of them, then sandwich together with the other halves. Leave to set.

Steps:

• Combine 1 cup pecans and bourbon; let stand, covered, for 8 hours or overnight., Cream butter and confectioners' sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, until crumbly; stir in pecan mixture. Refrigerate, covered, until firm enough to shape, about 45 minutes. Shape into 1-in. balls; place on waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour., Dip in chocolate coating; allow excess to drip off. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup pecans. Let stand until set.

Steps:

• Line a 9X9 baking tray with parchment. Chop chocolate and place in a large glass bowl. On the stove simmer heavy cream, bourbon, vanilla and salt. Just before it boils remove from heat and pour a quarter into the chopped chocolate. Allow to rest 2 minutes and mix a little. Slowly add the remainder of the cream and whisk. (Adding all the cream at once would cause the fat to separate from the chocolate which is not what you want.
• Mix thoroughly until creamy and pour into your parchment lined dish. Chill at least two hours or overnight before removing.
• Once set you can remove and cut into your desired shapes. I melted down various chocolates and using a dessert fork with a missing center tine, dipped each bonbon in a bath of chocolate before doing fine decorating using melted chocolate in a parchment bag.