[Sca-cooks] Miscellaneous Sugar Stuff

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings.  Comfits should keep quite well if put into (for example)
a Tupperware container.  Or, even better, into a Ziploc bag inside a
tightly sealed plastic container.  I've kept the dreaded moisture
away from sugar paste by having it in a plastic bag inside a large
plastic tote, and sugar paste is more hygroscopic (correct word??)
than comfits are.

Stefan's comment about drinking from a sugar paste goblet before it
disintegrates brings up an experiment on the dissolvablility of
sugar paste.  I dropped a piece of well-dried, broken sugar paste
(about 1/8 inch thick) into a glass of water.  Hours later it was
still there, inviolate.  I might hypothesize that if the sugar paste
were very thin and not terribly dry, it might dissolve with a hot
liquid, but cold liquids can probably be used with impunity.  If
it's dry enough to hold its shape, you could use it during a banquet
and not have to hasten your drinking.  Period sources warn to keep
hot things away from the sugar paste.

Alys Katharine -- off to visit sunny Berkeley, CA, and the West's
Crown Tourney on Sat.