[Sca-cooks] Pulled sugar was Sugar Plate Again

[johnna holloway]

For photos of pulled sugar.
See--
http://www.notterschool.com/default.asp?page=hp
and look at the photo gallery.
I did some minor work with pulled sugar in December
when I did the dragon for the Red Spears feast. I did
"pulled sugar wings" to go along with
 a cast or poured sugar
body. Sir Hugh Plat includes recipes for molding a poured sugar
syrup as does John Murrell.

My Italian materials on sugarworks are sitting in a stack
and sometime later this summer I will be doing some more
work with them. Earliest printed recipe in English for Sugarpaste
is that of Alessio which is 1558. The earliest Alessio in Italian
would be 1555, so that's probably the earliest printed recipe.
There is one 1525 work that contains confectionary recipes,
but I've not yet seen a copy and it's not been reprinted for
purchase. I've not seen any description that indicates that it
contains either sugarpaste or pulled sugar. One has to remember
that in order to have pulled sugar, they must have made the
transition from honey to sugar and figured out how to work with
boiling a sugar syrup. In any case you should start with
one of the best books on confections and sweets which is
Sugar-Plums and Sherbet by Laura Mason. Also see
her PPC 69 article which has the early English mss. candy recipes
in it. They date from the 15th century.



Johnnae llyn Lewis   Johnna Holloway



Lady Orlaith of Storvik wrote:
Okay so I have a question.  I've been trying to find the beginnings of
hard candy for making things like pulled sugar and I haven't had much luck

> so far.  Does anyone have a beginning date for such things?  Or any
> suggestions on sources?
> Orlaith
>