Pastry - Showpieces

In addition to Chocolate showpiece, others commonly seen are Pastillage and Marzipan. Pastillage is made from a crazy amount of icing sugar, some gelatin and cornflour. It is more tricky to work with than Marzipan, as the surface tends to dry out very quickly. Traditionally, different shapes are made in advance to dry out properly over 3-4 days, and assembled, and only then can you get something standing.

It is also used for wedding cakes common in the US or UK where its pastel colors and clay like modelling abilities allow you to create small decorating bows and ribbons and piece them altogether on a large pastel piece to cover the wedding cake.

In school, we only have 3 hrs, so we made hats. I made the pink one. The chef said oh, it's very feminine... and I said, yes, it's for a girl afterall, I'm not gonna wear it.

Compressed sugar are basically normal caster sugar colored and placed inside molds, not unlike making sand castles. After drying out, they're quite solid. What's useful is that you can make a towel of different colored 'sand' to use to prop up a showpiece.

Marzipan: at 33% almond paste. I made the farmer boy and the poodle. It's all freestyle, there're no molds or direction, it's only your imagination.