[Sca-cooks] Sugarpaste Questions

Elise Fleming alysk at ix.netcom.com
Wed Nov 22 13:57:10 PST 2006


Sorry if others have already answered the question - I get the digest so
sometimes I'm behind everyone else.  James wrote:

>Thing that's mainly getting me is that what I've used in the past, gum 
>tragacanth, isn't that easy to find. Was wondering if gum arabic will 
>work the same? 

No.  Don't use gum arabic.  Go to a cake decorating supply store or go
online and purchase whatever they are calling gum paste powder.  It is a
different gum - probably gum karaya which is slightly pinker in color and
makes a slightly beiger white than the whiter white of tragacanth sugar
paste.  I'm not sure if you can get the plain gum paste powder without the
added sugar.  The added sugar stuff tells you to just add water. I don't
see any plain gum paste powder in the Sweet Celebrations paper catalog but
I might have missed it.  They do have a "gum paste mix" which has the sugar
already added.

>Also, if the color isn't a factor wouldn't raw sugar work as well as white?

You would have to grind it up to a fine powder.  And, why would you prefer
to do that?  You could as well grind up regular white sugar into a finer
form if you didn't want to use commercial powdered sugar.  Period
confectioners used the best and whitest sugar available for their creations
so if you wanted to be more "period" you could use table sugar and grind it
up in a blender, with via mortar and pestle, or a combination of both.

Alys Katharine

Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/





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