[Sca-cooks] pressed sugar

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jul 31, 2009, at 10:26 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

> And to that point here is a recipe
> This is an excerpt from *Ouverture de Cuisine*
> (France, 1604 - Daniel Myers, trans.)
> The original source can be found at MedievalCookery.com <http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ouverture.shtm 
> >
>
> To prepare sugar for casting images & fruits. Mix melted sugar with  
> rose water as much as you would like to have, & let it boil a long  
> time until it becomes like syrup, when boiling add two well beaten  
> egg whites, at the end the sugar will be very white, then pass the  
> melted sugar through a fine sieve to separate out the egg white,  
> then put the sugar back on the fire, & let it boil a long time,  
> stirring the sugar with a spatula, casting it on top, if you see  
> that it falls like snow then it is cooked enough, then take it from  
> the fire, it must always be mixed with a spatula that it will become  
> like little grains & little bubbles, then cast it in the form of  
> fruit or images as wanted.
>
> So you are melting sugar, clarifying it to remove impurities and  
> then casting it.

Sounds about right. I suspect the instruction to work it with a  
spatula "that it will become like little grains & little bubbles" is  
probably the equivalent of pulling the sugar to give it some crystal  
development, keep it from case-hardening, and make sure the product is  
opaque (which most things you'd be casting, would be).

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter