Week 47 to Week 49 Final Showpiece

Our final assessment for sugar work is to make a showpiece using pastillage and 2 other types of sugars. It was hard to decide on a theme but I finally decided to make an underwater theme with fishes. My showpiece was an abstract design and was meant to be a sweet buffet showpiece for a birthday party where the fish represents longevity. 

I wanted it mostly pastillage but our trainer said I should try to incorporate more sugar medium into it. She suggested that I make a fish by blowing sugar. I wasn't confident about it as I remembered how long it took me to blow a sphere 2 weeks ago. Basically I didn't get any sphere! 

We had 4 days spread across 2 weeks to finish our showpiece. So on the first 2 days, all the parts to the showpiece were made and stored for the following week where we assembled it.  My pastillage pieces were cut and left to dry. Most of them made 2 shares of pastillage but I seem to have enough. Wonder if I am rolling it too thin. I even had 2 extra fishes as spare. 

Pastillage left to dry

Pulled Sugar

Pulled Sugar in green

First I made the pulled sugar, I made one green colour for my seaweed and another yellow which was going to be used later. Pull Sugar is made by boiling granulated sugar with water till 110˚C, then adding glucose syrup into it and continue to boil till 150˚C. Then tartaric acid is added then boil till 156˚C. Quickly we arrest the sugar (sounds cool doesn't it?, it just means stop the sugar from boiling any further by dipping the bottom of the pot into a basin of cold water) Then we pour the sugar onto a silicon mat to cool and we pull and stretch the sugar till it is shiny. When the sugar is pulled, air is incorporated into the sugar which gives it the satin shine. 

Sugar casting for the base

Then I made sugar casting, which is where the sugar is boiled with water and glucose is added when temperature is 110˚C, then colour is added at 130˚C and continue to boil till 156˚C. After arresting the sugar, I added some silver lustre dust into the sugar to give it a nice shimmery effect. Then I poured it into a cake ring which has been sprayed with oil and wrapped with aluminium foil. Then let it cool completely. 

Pressed Sugar

Pressed Sugar is the easiest to make. It is just sugar and a little bit of cold water and colour. Then it is pressed into a mould and left to dry for about a week. Then pop it out and done, pressed sugar. 

Rock Sugar as the coral

Rock sugar was quite interesting to make, it was boiling the sugar and water together and pouring royal icing into it. Then it starts to bubble up like mad science project. Then quickly without deflating the air in the sugar, it is poured into a large bowl that has been lined and oiled. Again, it is left to cool completely.

Blown Sugar whale

Now I had time in my hands so I attempted to blow the fish. If I can get fish to look good then I will use them on the showpiece, otherwise I will stick with the pastillage fish. After a few attempts, I was successful with the fish! I intended to make a dolphin shape fish but got a whale instead.. hahaha…. so a whale it is. I wanted to make 2 fishes of similar size but it was too hard, so I ended up with only one whale. 

Assembling showpiece

The following week was about assembling the showpiece. I picked my nice pieces of pastillage and airbrushed it with some green. Then I assembled the pastillage waves onto the cast sugar using melted isomalt. The rock sugar was used as support and also it looks like corals. Pressed sugar starfish and a dome shape where I planned to place the fish was placed on. The pulled green seaweeds and the big fat whale were finally glued on. 

Since I had the pastillage fish made, I thought I can do a 2 sided showpiece. One side with a whale with sexy lips and the other side was the pastillage fish. I am very happy that I tried making the blown fish, I think it gave the simple showpiece a bit of a pop and colour. 

Whale side view

Pastillage fish view

Since everything is made of sugar, it started to melt as I got it home. It was a lot of hard work for such a short time of appreciation. It went into the bin after 2 days. How sad. 

On the next day after finishing our showpiece, we were to finish off a small module on blowing sugar which we couldn't fit in before the final assessment. We had to make a banana, an apple and a pear. The banana looks funny, the apple didn't look juicy but I am most happy with the pear. 

Green pear

Funny looking apple 

Banana or chilli? 

My favourite

Well this comes to the end of my journey in patisserie certificate 4 course and I hope to continue to bake and enjoy even more creations on my own. I am happy that I manage to fulfil my commitment to blog everything I learnt from school. Thank you everyone who has made this journey a pleasant and enjoyable one. Thanks to all my friends who has been reading my blog. I will continue to blog my baking experience. 

Week 46 Pastillage box

The following week we did Pastillage as our sugar medium to build a box. Pastillage is made of icing sugar, cornstarch, white vinegar, glucose syrup, gelatine and water. I think it is also known as gum paste. It hardens up when in contact with air and no one actually eats it because they might break their teeth. 

All the pieces are cut and left to dry

We were given a template to make an octagon shaped box and a fixed amount of pastillage to complete the box with a lid and decorations. The process of making the box was spread across 2 days. Day 1, we cut the pieces and let it dry till the next day. Day 2 , we sanded the pieces with sand paper and then assembled them with royal icing acting as glue. 

Assembling the octagon box

The lid

The box

 Then comes the decorations which I made pretty simple with some butterflies and leaves. Did the border with royal icing and outlined the leaves to give it a bit more colour. Then glued everything on with royal icing and tah-dah! box done. 

Again, I am not too excited about the box, mainly because I can't eat it. Hehe. But I can put chocolates in the box and that will make me a lot happier. 

Week 45 Sugar Casting

Sugar is definitely not as much fun as chocolate. Why? Because I get to eat the chocolate at the end of the day whereas sugar work is not really meant to be eaten. All you get to do with sugar is look at it. 

Sugar! It is usually used to make showpieces for buffet. So it is meant to be art. Yes sugar is beautiful. We did sugar casting, pressed sugar, rock sugar, pulled sugar, pas tillage and the hardest of all, blowing sugar. Blown sugar looks a lot like blown glass. It breaks like glass too. 

I described chocolate as being temperamental and how would I describe sugar now? I think sugar is absolutely hot! Literally ! I got blisters on my thumb the day when we did pulled sugar. There weren't any cotton gloves left and so I only had latex gloves. I used 3 layers of it but it was still too hot. 

Sugar Casting for the base of the showpiece

We made a small little showpiece with sugar where we are required to make a rose , ribbon and the base. I did not like my showpiece very much as we had limited time and I only had lots of red sugar to play with. So my showpiece just looks red! But I guess it is more about learning the techniques.

Pulling sugar can be fun if you can't feel heat. For me it was quite painful but I have to say it does look very pretty. We made some ribbons where we combined the green and the yellow together. The temperature of the sugars has to be almost the same so that pulls evenly. I struggled and finally managed to get one decent looking ribbon. 

Melting the sugar under heat lamp

Then I made a rose and also 2 leaves. The rose took a while as we had to join the each petal on piece by piece. The leaves were a lot easier to make as we had an imprint mould that we pressed the sugar on to get the veins of the leaf. 

My unimpressive showpiece

Ok made all that was required and stuck them together to make a showpiece. Not much I can say about my showpiece except that it is really red.