Pastry Sugarwork Exam Entries

Standing on your feet for 5hrs straight, sweating and puffing, faced with a heater lamp, and even hotter melted sugar on your hands is no joke! And we have to do it twice!

Yesterday, we had a trial run. To discover where we were slow at, what could be improved, what worked, and what didn't.

This was my trial entry:

I didn't do any planning, I just made a lot of decorations and piece them up when time came. Chef didn't really like it. Although my handiwork was good, there were too many colors. Should keep to 2-3 colors, or even shades of 1-2 colors to make it more soothing to the eye. (Unlike chocolate where OTT seems to rule.) Important to give flow and movement to the showpiece. Many of the other students' were quite disastrous. 1 collapse (she didn't cook the sugar to the right temperature, and it started warping and breaking as she was piecing it up.) One was stuck on the marble table when she left it a little too long, and had to scrape it off with a paint scrapper.

Anyway, today, I think all of us improved tremendously!

There are 9 of us in our class SP1. 1 student threw her entry into the bin after grading. I didn't think it was so bad. There are another about 10, I think, in the other class SP2, but they took their exams on a different day, so I couldn't capture their entries here.

These 2 warrant special mention. Chef said they were excellent. I think so too!

And mine, and 2 others were very good. This was my entry.

I chose a color theme of green, white, and orange... come to think, it's very Irish!

I made a rough sketch in the morning, something softer, elegant, with clean lines, fit for a spring wedding. With various poured, pulled, blown sugar pieces. In time, maybe I can work in Murano.... fat hope!

I'm glad this is over now! No more sugarwork!!!! Well, maybe just a little more... I'm making some 'corals', and some caramel to dip my cherries for my cake entry on Thursday.

Sugarwork

Sugarwork - Boiling syrup to 165C and stop immediately by sinking the pot in a bed of ice water for only 2 secs. Pour unto a SILPAT, a few drops of coloring and you're ready to go! *wink*

Yes, and a pair of heat-resistant gloves of course!

Sugarwork has always been a reason why some do not want to complete Superior Pastry. It's one of our entries for exams, and they cannot take the heat! Those petite hands that were excellent in making cakes and pastries and piping, find themselves excessively burnt from the heat of syrup. These blobs of 'molten glass' are stretched, poured, pulled, blown to various showpieces that you can see here.

These below are chef's demonstrations.

These below are what I created from the practicals:

Because of the humidity of tropical Asia, the sugar pieces will start to become sticky quickly, and over the course of a day, start to melt. Even in air-conditioned rooms. The only help is a dehumidifier, but you can't turn that on all the time.

Monday, I'll have a 5 hrs session to put together what we've learnt so far to design a piece I'll have to replicate and present on Tuesday, to submit for exam.

Hard Candy... and soft ones too

You'll notice that we have made any cakes in the last few weeks, that was the end, until we have to produce our creations for our final exams.

Instead, we are now focusing on chocolate and sugar works and showpieces, the likes of which you see on the buffet tables or at a wedding reception.

Sugar and chocolate are very temperamental, and they're not easy to work with, it's as though they are living creatures, and you need to tame them into obeying your wishes to form the shapes and structure and consistency for your artworks.  We started with soft candies and will gradually proceed to more difficult pieces.

Loukoum, othewise known as Turkish delight (or Greek delight, whichever side of the Aegean sea you're on...  Incidentally, IMHO, the best loukoum I ever tasted was found on Mykonos, at a small tea shop, fabulously decked out for sure, it's Mykonos after all!  It has a good soft yet chewy consistency and yet not too sweet and a nice layer of pistachio nuts for added bite, I would go back again just for the loukoum.  In my practical, I tried to re-create those loukoum by bringing my own pistachios, and I think the result wasn't so bad.) 

On the same day, we also made a strawberry/raspberry jam, and milk jam (confiture de lait), yes it looks like condensed milk, but it's made from fresh milk, it has a fuller value and lotsa vanilla seeds!

Fruit candies with marzipan.  Mielina - a sorta nougat-y soft candy made from honey, cream and nuts.

Our initiation to sugarworks was a nightmare.  Basically sugar is melted to 160C (yes, i'm not kidding you!) and poured unto a silicon mat, upon it's cooling down, while it's still pliable (and still at about 120C)  you pull stretch roll the sugar to the shapes you want.  We need special gloves for that, and a heater lamp to keep it pliable.  Once I stretch out a piece of sugar nice and fine so as to wrap some praline, I placed it down on the board too hard, and it being thinner, it cools down very quickly as well, and like a window pane, it shattered like glass!!! I was devasted.  The solution:  Gather all the broken shards, re-melt them gently (you don't want them to turn to caramel) and start all over again.

Anyway, in the end it still turn out alright.  Sugar works will be one of the other component, than your own creation of a cake, on the final exams.  Oh boy, we're gonna have a good time.

Just to give you an idea what we have to submit as sugarwork for exams.  Yes, all from sugar!