SC - Re:Sugar Paste

[Elise Fleming]

Lord Voldai asked if the Form of Cury stuff was "a hard crack clear 
sugar candy".  I would guess that it was.  Here's the recipe from the 
Andalusian cookery book ("Cast Figures of Sugar"):

"Throw on the sugar a like amount of water or rosewater and cook until 
its consistency is good.  Empty it into the mould and make of it 
whatever shape is in the mold, in the places of the "eyebrow" and the 
"eye" and what resembles the dish you want, because it comes out of the 
mould in the best way.  Then decorate it with gilding and whatever you 
want of it.  If you want to make a tree or a figure of a castle, cut it 
piece by piece.  Then decorate it section by section and stick it 
together with mastic until you complete the figure you want, if God 
wills."

I have modernized some of the spelling, but here is the recipe from 
Curye on Inglysch:  #13, Goud Kokery, "To make sugar plate.  Take a lb, 
of fayr clarefyde suger and put it in a panne and sette it on a furneys 
& gar it sethe.  And asay thi suger between thi fyngers and thi thombe, 
and if it parte from thi fynger and thi thombe than it is inow sothen, 
if it be potte suger.  And if it be fyner suger, it will have a litell 
lower decoccioun.  And sete it than fro the fyr on a stole, & than 
stere it evermore with a spature till it tourne owte of hys browne 
colour into a yelow colour, and than sette it on the fyre ageyn the 
mountynance of a Ave Maria, whill evermore sterying wyth the spatur, 
and sette it of ageyne, but lat it noght wax over styfe for cause of 
powrynge.  And loke thou have redy beforne a fair litel marbill stone 
and a litell flour of ryse in a bagge, shakying over the marbill stone 
till it be overhilled, and than powre thi suger theron as thin as it 
may renne, for the thinner the palten the fairer it is.  If thou willt, 
put therin any diverse lfours, that is to say roses leves, iolet leves, 
gilofre leves, or any other flour leves, kut them small and put them in 
whan the suger comes first fro the fyre.  And if thou wilt make fyne 
suger plate, put therto att the first sethying ii unces of rose water, 
and if ye will make rede plate, put therto i unce of fyne tournesole 
clene waschen at the fyrst sethyinge."

The hint as to the proper temperature of the sugar is to draw it 
between the thumb and finger.  Since this is fairly long, I will send a 
subsequent post with some information I've compiled on the different 
stages/temperatures of sugar.

Alys Katharine
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