Teaching kids glass with candy

[Brian Newman]

A friends son (11 years old) was interested in learning glass. I was thinking sugar glass would be a good place to start. Here is my basic recipe.

3 1/2 parts sugar
2 parts water
1 part corn syrup
food colouring(optional)
flavoring(optional)
small amount of cream of tartar(optional)

Bring to a boil, and heat slowly beyond this, boiling out the water until it gets above "soft crack" point (290 F) but below "hard crack"(320 F). I dont know why some directions call for the cream of tartar.

Blow candy glass with a heat lamp. (200 F)
Fancy lolipops for the bead people

If anyone has more info, please post it here.

[Mr. Smiley]

That's a pretty neat idea. I must have no imagination, cause I just let my kids use the torch and real glass. We may have to give this a shot for my 5 year old though. Sounds cool! :D

[smutboy420]

I have been wanting to make blown suger glass pipes and bongs and even dills. As gifts and stuff like that.
its not as easy as it looks to do pulled/blown suger. (but then again neather is real glass.) But allmost EVERY tech used is also used to do suger. Just the suger pros have no real idea what they are doing and have just stumbled on to what ever techs they use. or that have been handed down by Dewey Wilton who profected the art of pulled suger and gum paste in 1945. Most of the pros learned from him. the tools are all abdaptations of simelut techs in glass yet you can tell they as not borrowed from glass tho ,more like nesecity just happened to come up with some of the same techs just not exicuted as well as a glass blower would do them.

You can use a hair drier like its your torch. a stainless steel bowl just as a marble mold would be used in glass. metal spatula would be like your hand held marvler pad. a slab of marble as you flat mrvler.
the only thing that is difrent realy is you can't use your breath to blow the glass because the moisture in your breath will disolve the suger. But instead its done on a blow tube and you use a hand or a foot pump to pump the air in.

Its a real dieing art there are only a few masters in the world and there IS ROOM for any new comers to come in to the feild and take it by storm if they had there shit together right.
One of my friends mom that owns a huge confectnary supply house has been tring for a few years to recrute me to work in suger. They want me to master it and go to world wide compotishions and shit. and blow up the scene. I helped her make some ribon cane For her once for a cake she was doing and peep when ape shits over it. Ever sence then she has been making me watch videos and read books and shit. theres just so many phat glass techs that would be cool in suger and ARE NOT being done by anyone in suger yet. Just wait till I bust out on the scene with stick stack tube pulls of colored suger and wig wags and shit.

Pulled suger IS the tits man.

[Brian Newman]

What books? Any more info for me? What recipies are best? I really want to get into this myself. I will google the name you mentioned.

[Glassroots]

I don't know about candied glass..... but I had some glass candy once that tasted like blood....

[wifebeader]

This is how I got interested in glass! :bouncy:
Was looking to learn sugar blowing but the class was $1200 and I thought if I was going to spend that much on a class I wanted the pieces I make to last......

[Breed]

http://www.pastrywiz.com/sugarart/index.html

looks cool

[medicatedMELTDOWN]

I saw this stuff on the Food Network and was amazed how similar it seemed...smutboy is right no chefs are really pulling off insane sugar pieces they are just simple hollow forms. We definitley need a lampworker to turn sugarblower and change the industry..haha

[smutboy420]

One good book is the wilton pulled suger. Wilton also has classes on pulled suger and other types of candy but they are expensive. but you would be a certified wilton instructor after you are done with the classes, So thats pretty cool.
one of the videos I have that is pretty good is also called "pullled suger" I'll have to find out who its by I don't have the tapes jacket to get the info from right now.
But a good source of pulled suger supplies is the http://www.confectioneryhouse.com/ I don't see any books on her site but I do know she can get them (by the way there is not to much out there on the subject just a few books and videos. you thought glass had a glass curtian. lol lol there are only a few dozon peep doing pulled suger at a pro leval.)
But most stuff is going to be by Wilton being that it was the wilton dude who invented the whole tech.

[Brian Newman]

http://www.pastrywiz.com/sugarart/index.html

looks cool
Great link!
I think I want a blowhose with a bag in a chamber as a vapor/germ barrier so I have more control than a foot pump.

[smutboy420]

Good info on that site BUT man oh man what a rip, they get 107 for a digital thermomiter the same model and model mumber as the radio shake on i have that cost $12.99
and the suger started kit that has about $99 worth of items in it is almost $700
and $25 for 1oz of cream of tartar What a major rip off. HOLLY SMOKES YIKES


Glass blowers tools and jewlers tools are not even marked up that high and up till now, glass and jewlers tools where the worse cross product prices i have ever seen. Now a $30 milli nipper that is realy a ceramic tile niper that cost $18 at the hardware store is a good deal.


But any good info on that site tho regardless of the rip prices they charge.

[Mr. Wonka]

I have a book and a basic setup here to do sugar blowing, and played with it a few times.... and never will again! The stuff is so sticky and messy it's not worth it. The cleanup is a bitch too- you have to chisel the unused sugar out of the pot, and there are shards and lumps that stick to EVERYTHING. It's not worth it to me, I'll stay with glass!

[Mr. Smiley]

Come of Tom... it would be perfect for you to make candy stuff! :D

[Mr. Wonka]

I thought so too, but when the Oompa Loompas had to clean up the mess they went on strike. :lol

[Mr. Smiley]

You've got to flex the Oompa Loompa hand more. Can we play with it at AGI? It's sugar right, did you try soaking it in hot water or reheating it with lotsa water in the pan before you busted out the chisels???

[smutboy420]

It can set up pretty hard. like hard candy. Or candy canes. So water might work very slowly on it. but The chisel way has to be a lot faster.

aug. is about the worse time of the year to work with pulled suger cause of humidity in the air. Inless you are in an air condishioned place or something like that. The humidity can make it get all gooy and stuff.

[Nightcat]

I have a book and a basic setup here to do sugar blowing, and played with it a few times.... and never will again! The stuff is so sticky and messy it's not worth it. The cleanup is a bitch too- you have to chisel the unused sugar out of the pot, and there are shards and lumps that stick to EVERYTHING. It's not worth it to me, I'll stay with glass!I wonder if you would be willing to loan the book to Misha's library for us to check out? I would like to take a look at the book. I don't know if I want to actually try it but I would like to know more about it.

Can you post the title and author?

[Mr. Wonka]

Great idea Nightcat. I'll look for it later and post the info!

[Brian Newman]

http://www.bsguk.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?
I hope to get some help here.

[Mr. Wonka]

Here's a good link for you:

http://members.aol.com/noisykids/sugar.htm

[Brian Newman]

Thanks for that link, Tom. It covers the basics, more than anything I have seen so far. The British Sugarcraft Guild has offered nothing so far.

[CliffsideGlassworks]

fyi. - tartaric acid is not cream of tarter, cream of tarter is a derivitive of tartaric acid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartaric_acid

its still super cheap tho, about 20-25$ a pound - that site sure is mad overpriced on everything..

[Mr. Wonka]

I found the link very interesting- you can print out your own 17 page "book" on the subject. If you want to try it, be prepared... it's REALLY messy!

I think we spent around $50.00 on the equipment- book, heat lamp, stainless steel pot, thermometer, hand pump (to inflate a football / basketball), some paint brushes, and a few other misc. items.

[smutboy420]

I was thinking it was just more technical grade when it was tartaric acid. But that is not correct now that I think about it more. But I also recall that other acids can be used instead to tho. I wounder if citric acid would work? Or vinger for some nasty joke candy lol lol.


Tom $50.00 on the equipment. Thats awesome start up cost for something that turned out to not be something you where in to wanting to keep doing. $50 to find out is pretty cool. Something like $500-$1000 someone might get bumed out if it was not what they thought it was going to be and shelved it all.

[Brian Newman]

Instead of sugar, Most people working in this field use Isomalt (http://www.palatinit.com/en/Food_Ingredients/ISOMALT/Applications/Hard_Boilings/) . Thanks to foodiesue from the British sugarcraft guild forum for this.

[somberbear]

cool... now i got ideas in my head....

you could use boro for blow tubes , and or put a moister trap or use an aquarium pump for air... stainless steel mandrells...

i wonder if you can build peices and then glue them togeather later or something... make a goblet outta it would be cool ....

i think ill stick to chocolate unless its agi or a group doing it...

im sure we can figure out a good heading system for it

but when i was watching them do it ... on the food network it was pritty intens stuff.... and serious looking i wouldnt do that with a kid... i would probably start out teaching them how to rotate things, and or do a turtle on a real torch... then move them up to doing the honey on the rod deal. if they wanted to keep doing it. make a pendent for there mums etc. give them alot of grounding in both the love of it and the safty needed. etc etc

[Lithomancy]

I thought so too, but when the Oompa Loompas had to clean up the mess they went on strike. :lol


dude, how many times must you be told, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED to mention oompa loompas EVER! the out of court settlement clearly dictates, any wonka fam member is forbided to mention oompa loompas due to teh ABUSE the wonkas have done to the oompa loompa nation. your salvery days are over, why must you continue to sterotype the oompa loompas

also, oompa loompa #8,972-g would like his taffy machine back

[christopher]

I have a book and a basic setup here to do sugar blowing, and played with it a few times.... and never will again! The stuff is so sticky and messy it's not worth it. The cleanup is a bitch too- you have to chisel the unused sugar out of the pot, and there are shards and lumps that stick to EVERYTHING. It's not worth it to me, I'll stay with glass!

Tom,

If you just put a bunch of water in the pot and boil it, it'll get most of it out, and make the pan easy to wash. . .

[chai kaneh-bos'm]

wow never seen this before!! awesome!

though im not sure i would want my kids doing this and then step up to glassblowing and have it be second nature to reach out and grab the glass to shape it...

[Aussie]

I had a look into sugar blowing last year when I didn't have access to my studio and torch due to a sewage building hiccup. I had about 3 weeks of not being able to make anything at the torch. I needed something from preventing spontaneous insanity. But I ended up with some polymer clay, instead, and did some sculpting.
However, while I was still checking out sugar blowing, I came across that same link posted by Breed. I did more specific searches after that and found this veritable bible: Textbook of Sugar Pulling and Sugar Blowing (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Textbook-Sugar-Pulling-Blowing/dp/3952106933)
Needless to say, an absolute bargain for the price!

[Aussie]

oh, also a thought for a moisture trap, it'd be relatively easy to make a little screw top unit with hose barbs and fill it with dessicant silicone crystals. You'd have to put a particulate filter on either side of this to avoid blowing silicone dust into the sugar or breathing it in on those occasions where you may be required to force deflate.