Advanced baking: Sugar station

Sugar station was a lot of fun as well as being quite a bit painful at times. Most of the sugar has to be handled at uncomfortable heat levels until your skin starts to toughen up a bit. Even then during some parts of making the pulled sugar you have to handle it at burning temperatures with gloves and a thin nonstick mat between you and the burning hot sugar. The layers would protect us from the heat for about 5 seconds and then we would have to put our hands on the cold metal table to bleed the heat off our hands.



This was my first project. Various forms of pulled sugar used to make flowers, ribbons, leaves, and shells. After I had made a bit of each the assignment was to combine them into showpiece.




This was my second practical exam showpiece featuring blown sugar which I used to create the fish and dolphin. The green corral was created by pouring the molten sugar mixture into a pot full of ice. After giving the sugar time to set the whole thing is tipped out and the ice is allowed to melt while draining into a sink.

This is my final practical showpiece. This piece is based around the use of pastillage. Its kind of like clay but quick drying and very fragile when working with. Because of this pieces done in pastillage are usually 2 dimensional but I got and idea and was set on it. Even with the frailty of it I managed to pull it off and think I managed to make it look quite nice! It was required that one pulled sugar style element should be included. I opted for spun sugar because I thought it would work well for the piece and we hadn't had a chance to work with it yet in class and it was the last day. Turns out the reason why we don't work with it as a regular part of the curriculum is because it makes a heck of a mess. The way it works is after you create the sugar mixture you dip a whisk with the curved ends cut off and whip the ends back and forth over a large wooden dowel hanging off the end of a desk. The centrifugal force causes hair thin strands to string off the whisk and cool instantly as it drapes over the dowel. After you do that a few times you gather all the strands up, fold them over a few times without packing them too tightly and use them for your needs.

Ok, thats it for advanced baking! I started management class today. Mostly its bookwork and time in a classroom. There are a few field trips we will be going on and hopefully i will be able to take some pictures. If so, I will make sure to put them up here.