SC - (OT) food for ill kids

[Gretchen M Beck]

Greetings!  Someone mentioned using gumtex for sugar paste and I wanted 
to clarify matters for folk who haven't worked with the stuff.  Gumtex 
is a brandname for the strengthening gum used in modern gum paste 
(sugar paste).  It's the modern equivalent of gum tragacanth.  It is of 
a slightly pinker cast than gum tragacanth, and is usually gum karaya.  
It's much cheaper than tragacanth, but for taste, the period recipe 
with tragacanth is nicer, and is also much whiter.  The packaged stuff 
to which one just adds water for "instant" gum paste is not Gumtex.  
Gumtex is one of several ingredients (powdered sugar, glucose, egg 
white) that make up a modern gum paste mixture.  You buy the Gumtex and 
the glucose separately and mix everything together.  Recipe is on the 
Gumtex container.  

The package I use (and seems to be the cheapest) is called "gum paste 
mix" and is made by CK Productus, Fort Wayne, IN 46825.  The number on 
the package is 77-201.  The ingredients are confectioners' sugar, egg 
albumen, dry corn syrup solids, cornstarch, and vegetable gums.  There 
is a recipe on the package (which I generally ignore since I make up 
the whole package at one time).  My cake decorating store sells the one 
pound package for $2.29.  Hope this clarifies!

Alys Katharine, home two hours on summer break and I've already taken a 
one hour nap!
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