Sugar Oh My Sugar

Next up we learned about sugar work, I'm sure that you've seen the competitions on TV where they build these big amazing pieces out of sugar or chocolate, if you haven't... I recommend that you do, it's pretty awesome and is art in a VERY pure form.

For this project we used Isomalt, which is a sugar-free sweetner made from sucrose and used in diabetic baking.  It's great to use in pulled sugar work because it does not break down when heated and absorbs very little water.

We learned how to cast, blow, and pull the sugar into different shapes.  for this centerpiece we created a  underwater theme including a fish.

A class photo:

My centerpiece:

This segment of school was one of the main reasons I choose National Culinary, most schools I spoke with do not teach these skills as part of the regular curriculum.  I loved every minute of this process, but you have to have lots of patients because it's VERY easy for your objects to break.  I really look forward to being able to practice these skills some more.  There was more airbrushing involved, have I mentioned that I really want an airbrush now? :-)