Boiling Sugar

I picked the pot off the stove, took a deep breath, and dumped the contents on my kitchen counter. I had just poured a sugar mixture at a temperature of 235F onto my kitchen counter. I was nervous and questioning my sanity. Someone was going to get hurt. I was the only one around. The probablity of that someone being me was looking pretty high.

I had a cake that needed to be iced. The recipe called for it to be covered in jam and then iced with a fondant icing. Covering the cake with jam was relatively simple. You heated the jam up and then using a spoon, you scooped it onto the cake and started spreading it around.

The fondant seemed simple enough. You put in sugar and boiling water, brought it up to temperature without stirring and then dumped it on a marble slab. You worked it with a spatula until it cooled and then you kneaded it smooth. It was easy until you reached the dumping stage. I was missing the necessary marble or enamel slab. My mother assured me I could use the normal kitchen counter.

I scrubbed and cleaned off my counter. My knowledge of sugar mixtures is that they tend to pick things up. I bleached the counter. Then I realised that I was dumping food on top of it. I really didn't want bleach in my fondant. Luckily I have two counters. I cleaned the other one.

If you do not stir a sugar mixture, it stays clear. Sugar is fascinating. Just the way you handle it will totally change your final product. The way you stir or do not stir it, the temperature you bring it too and the way you treat it as it cools. Everything will affect the final product.

For the fondant, you put two cups of sugar in a pot, added a cup of boiling water, brought it up to 234F (clever readers will note that I let my mixture go above temperature. This is because I walked away when I should have been monitoring the temperature), and then poured it onto a surface.

At this point, you start playing with it. My main goal was to keep it in a central puddle so that I would have a smaller mess to clean up afterwards and I wasn't going to have boiling sugar all over my cupboard doors. As the mixture cools, it turns white and becomes creamy. You are told to work quickly which is silly as I'm not sure how you can get the mixture to cool down faster. You will see it crystallizing and losing its elasticity. At this point, you hope you have baker's hands and can pick the mixture up. You start kneading it and working it like dough. My thoughts were that it was homemade play-doh - but from sugar instead of the normal salt. I broke it into smaller pieces and worked it in my hands which seemed to be easier. Then as I had more smaller smooth sections, I worked them into a larger ball.

I am proud to report that I did not burn myself, although it wasn't from a lack of trying.