Clear Look with Pulled Sugar

[chrose]

I imagine that adding the vinegar does much the same as adding the lemon juice or acid. The acetic acid in the vinegar along with the heat will invert part of the sugar making crystallization less likely. The difference I see is that adding lemon juice you run the risk of particles and precipitation (cloudiness). It's also more likely to be available in the kitchen than tartaric acid. Use the distilled. As far as moisture retention I don't think it makes a difference. Here's a tip. Bring your sugar to 309ºF and take it off the heat. Plunge in cool water to stop the process and make sure you thoroughly dry the outside of the pan so you don't get any stray water drips. Allow the pan to cool anough so that the bubbles dissipate and the sugar thickens slightly. Be careful pouring.

[cakerookie]

CH, how do I insert a photo here?

[panini]

Hey guys,
CR, on the wooden, I don't use one. I prefer metal, but that's just me. Also,
do you have a source of cool air for pulling and gluing?
I just wanted to mention, when I first started pouring, I can't remember who this was, but he had us use large coloring books. We basically just used them as stencils. Cut them out of clay in pieces. Poured different colors and glued them together. It was pretty neat to get results early in the process. I had more disney characters around my little 500 sq ft apartment, I used to get nightmares.
If you can't figure how to put up a pic. email me one
pan

[cakerookie]

Hey Pan! Thought you got hung up in hurricane Rita. Glad to hear from you. I will e-mail you my photo. But I got to warn you it's not much. I ran out of sugar and did not want to go get anymore. By the way you got an answer for the stickiness on this stuff? Read you could scrape it off with a small knife but that would scratch up the piece would'nt it? Any ideas? Yeah I have a hair dryer with a cool air setting on it.

[coppperpot]

[b]Try making a clear boiling of pouring sugar,Use a rubber mat cut out the size of CD, place a sheet of holographic paper underneath the mat then place a small lighty oiled ring mould in the centre where the hole should be, pour in sugar slowly to your desired thickness and leave to cool completely then carefully remove ring mould and rubber mat trim round the sugar carefully and hey you just cut your first cd hope this is good for you

[coppperpot]

You can never pull sugar and have a clear sugar at the end. Clear sugar is nearly always used for pouring but can be used in some moulding techniques also. hope this helps

[cakerookie]

Appreciate the tip. I realize that now. Matter of fact I did a piece over the weekend with poured sugar. Used playdough and a small cake tin lined with foil for molds. Of course the playdough was shot had to throw it away but it worked great.

[cakerookie]

I have a recipe that calls for 10% of an ingredient. How do I figure how much to add?

[panini]

CR,
Sometimes this is a percent of bulk. If you had 50 oz. water, 50 oz sugar. 10 percent would be 10 oz.
Unless it states 10% of an ingredient. If you're stuck, email me the formula.
pan

[cakerookie]

No, this is stating add 10%. So if I have say 24 oz water 24 oz sugar then 10% would be 4.8 oz.

[panini]

sounds right

[cakerookie]

OK. I think I have the formula down. But heres the kicker. What if I have say 4 oz corn syrup now let me do the math here and you can tell me if I am right.

24oz sugar + 24oz water + 4oz syrup= 52 x 10% = 5.20oz.

Hey Pan do you round up and down. Like if its over 5 round up or under 5 round down.

[foodpump]

Just started into getting into the sugar thing a few months ago, fingers and thumbs have constant blisters....

You can get fairly clear cast sugar by using this flowing recipie:
1000 gr fine sugar
250 gr water
200 glucose I use White or clear corn syrup, works just as good...
boil to 135 C
add in colouring, liquid is fine, powdered must be dissoovled with some kind of alcohol...
at 150 C add in 20 drops of tartaric acid*

Tartaric acid crystals can be found at u-brew wine/beer places. You must dissovle this with equal amounts of hot water to crystals, by weight.

If you want an opaque look pour in a slurry of calcium carbonate, also found at u-brew places

Lightly oil your rings or what ever you want to use for casting. You can even use plasticine for odd shapes, but it has to be plasticene, at art and hobby shops, not the cheap kid's stuff. Lay a strip of oiled alum foil inside the edges of these forms for easy removal.

Humidy is the #1 enemy. If you can get hold of nougat lacquer, spray it on your pieces, but you will still have to store them . Store them in an airtight container. ( I use the CAMBRO catering transport cases. 1/2 sheet pans slide easy in there.) but use a pan of silica gel crystals (camera shops should have this) or a lump of quick lime.

[cakerookie]

Looks like a good recipe but do you have the measurements in english not quite up on that metric deal yet. I have yet to be able to find tartaric acid where I live I use cream of tartar. Have tried corn syrup but I have found that it makes the sugar brittle and more prone to crystallization. Maybe its me I do not know but thats been my experience with corn syrup.Good to hear someone else is getting involved in the art the more the better I say. Let me know about that recipe in english measurements. Good to have you on board.

[foodpump]

Remember that old movie "The Great Escape", the one with Steve McQueen? Remember James Garner? (Rockford files...). He was a class "A" scrounger, and that is what I am, and probably every other serious cook. Like I said, try the U-brew places for tartaric acid. Cream of tartar will work-for a while- but doesn't dissolve very well. I can get glucose, but only in 50# drums, so I'd rather use corn syrup. I've got some show pieces that are over 3 mths old made with corn syrup, so I've got no problems there.

Nougat laquer can be gotten at high-end chocolate suppliers, but here I have to give you some top secret information: Laquer, that is, the dried sap of certain trees is an edible product. It dries very hard and shiny making it usefull for furniture applications, and has been for centuries. What the furniture people do is dissolve the sap flakes in wood alcohol, or turpentine, which makes the laquer easy to apply, the turpentine disolves, leaving a film of rock-hard laquer on the wood. Wood alcohol is poision, but regular alcohol sure isn't... What you're getting in those $30.00 spray bombs of nougat laquer is laquer flakes dissolved in pure alcohol and stuffed into a pressurized can. You can get the laquer flakes at wood shops or places like Lee Valley, and spray it on with a pipette: Two tubes joined at a 90 angle with a gap inbetween, one end goes into what ever you want to spray, the other into your mouth. When you blow gently liquid is sucked up and sprayed out at the gap inbetween the two tubes. Crude, maybe, but very effective.

Get yourself an electronic scale. Small ones (up to 2 kg/5lbs) go for around $50.00. Bakers have been using them since Egytians were doing their graffitti thing on the pyriamid walls; well, maybe not electronic scales... Seriously though, you'll find yourself much faster and more accuarate with scales, less dirty measuring tools to clean up too, and increasing, decreasing recipies as well as costing them out are far easier to do with weights, especialy metric. The metric system is the only system designed by scientists to make sense--not based on some dead King's appendage length, or how far a horse named "Spot" can canter carrying a rider weighing 18 stone, or the boiling point of mercury...