Sugar Paste (2): First few figurines

Finally had time to sit down and write about my first sugar paste hands-on yesterday. Well, the clay-like sugar paste didn't turn into anything queer after a day. It was still as hard. So I had some oil and water at my workplace and knead them into the clay as I work. I find that kneading oil into sugar paste is better than kneading water. It gives a smoother and softer texture to work with but yet not as sticky as adding water.

One good thing about my failed sugar paste is, it dries much more faster than a normal sugar paste. I know coz I have some Wilton ready-to-roll fondant which I use side by side. And it gets really hard, so maybe it won't taste as nice as a normal fondant. But I wasn't expecting anyone to eat these sugar though. The figurines using the Wilton fondant seem to have melted this morning after a night's rest. They were only starting to look a little drier just now. I shall leave them at the tabletop to dry some more.

So here's a peep of my experiments. Nothing fanciful. The animals were the most difficult to make. the flowers were the easiest and the most beautiful, in my opinion. My 3 kids wanted to join in the fun, so I gave them a bit of dough each and let them play around.

Mood: pleased

Sugar Paste (1): My first not-so-successful attempt

I tried making sugar paste (or fondant) today. Got the recipe from Baking Mum. I was inspired by her creations and got tempted to try.

One part of the recipe calls for making a well in the icing sugar and pouring the mixture into it. Silly me made the sugar well on a lined table top instead of a bowl. I had a hard time kneading the dough as everything was super sticky! My hands seemed to be binded by super sticky paint! I had to add a lot more icing sugar before I could get the stuff off my hands. In the end, my sugar paste seemed to be too dry. Let's see what it'll turn out to be tomorrow.

Mood: gloomy