Sugar Flowers

Now if your anything like me, watching the food network channel is one of my favorite things to do. More than that anything related to cake making : Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, Ultimate Cake-Off, etc. Id love to make half the stuff they do to decorate cakes. So i tried!

For Christmas i got some great silicone baking sheets and it reminded me of what i saw on several TV episodes. I looked up some recipes for poured sugar and i went for it. Here is a step by step account of how to make sugar flowers. Keep in mind the sugar gets EXTREMELY HOT!!! TAKE CAUTION!! and of course practice makes perfect.

Step One: In a pot over medium to high heat add 1 1/4 cup sugar and about 1/4 cup water, more if needed. I found directions at http://www.ehow.com/how_5651999_make-pulled-sugar.html but for the most part i flew of the hinge. After the sugar starts to boil add in your choice of food coloring. No need to stir the boiling will do it for you.

Use a candy thermometer to determine temperature. Heat the Sugar to exactly 298 degrees F otherwise if its undercooked it will recrystallize and if over cooked burn. This took me 4 tries to get to the right temp but dont give up.

Step Two: Once the sugar as reached 298 degrees F remove from heat and pour on to silicone baking sheet.

Make sure to wear rubber gloves. The sugar is EXTREMELY HOT!!! and you will even feel the heat through the gloves but will help shield some of the heat. I dont know what experts use to handle hot sugar but i found them to work well.

Step Three: The sugar will continue to cool every second it is off the heat so you must work quickly in order to get the sugar to a pliable material. The best way to start this is use your fingers to roll in the edges of the sugar into the center. This should be worked around the circle until the material is now in a ball shape.

The consistency should be similar to playing with gum. It till stick to its self but pull apart. I would caution waiting at least a minute or two before attempting this step to avoid burning yourself.

Step Four: Once pliable you will be able to pull the sugar, much like taffy. From this point you can take pieces of the of the sugar and mold them into the shape you are looking for.

This picture was taken from a previous attempt when i actually pulled the sugar but this is what the sugar looks like when burnt and pulled.

Step Five: Pull sugar pieces into the shape of your petals. In this case i was making a sugar poinsettia flower.

While it may not be perfect i think i did a pretty good job! For the stamen in the middle of the flower i dipped the sugar balls into sprinkles to add the yellow effect.

The task is a long one. Dont give up and be patience while attempting this. After you finish you can try and have a little fun. We tried to blow sugar in to shapes. Now i didnt know what the experts used to do this. From the shows ive watched i assume some type of plastic tubing but in our case i used a baster. I took the pump off and attempted it that way.