Pumpkin and Spice

Well, last week while the site was down, I had my final week of chocolate and sugar class. We were on the sugar module, which was a very different experience. I've made edible sugar- candies, caramel, spun sugar, but this was structural sugar. This was statues and objects modeled out of hot sugar...

Sugar sculpture isn't really home baker territory. It's pastry chef territory. Not trying to be snooty, but given that it's labor intensive, requires a good deal of specialized equipment and that the final product is only edible in the very most technical sense of the word, it's not really something one would bother with at home. It's also really hot. Really, really hot.

Most pastry chefs use isomalt sugar, a special sugar treated with enzymes that resists humidity better than cane sugar. (It's edible, and is used sometimes in food products, but it has some... unpleasant... gastro-intestinal side effects if eaten in too large a quantity...yuck!) The isomalt is cooked with a quantity of water until it reaches 320F. It is then poured out onto silicone mats to cool enough that it can be pulled. Pulling incorporates air and makes the sugar glossy and easier to work with. Once pulled, the sugar is placed in a Plexiglas box under a heat lamp to keep it hot enough to work with. At this point, it can be modeled, blown and pulled into desired shapes.

One day, we were supposed to practice our blown sugar by making fruits. I was bound and determined to make a pumpkin... It only took three tries! (hahaha... bleh.) I accented it with leaves and shaded it with an airbrush. I think it turned out well.

Most of the week was spent practicing for our final project. My team planned a sculpture of a Chinese dragon on a mountain with a cherry tree and a Chinese lantern. We ran into a small kink when on our practical exam day, the chef ran out of isomalt, which meant our sculpture had to be smaller and required us to be very creative in our sugar usage. All in all, though, we were happy with our final result. Enjoy...