I have been talking with chefette about my first batch of pastillage and making "coral" by PM and she suggested that I share my experience. I'm going to post about that, then add her response, .... and finally my response..... here goes.....
I think my first batch turned out OK. I used the powdered gelatin. I started out with 70 grams of water. After I let it sit in cold water, the gelatin was, I don't know how to describe it... it was more like a solid than a liquid. I could stand a spoon up in it and the spoon didn't fall over. So I added 3 more teaspoons of water. It was still not real fluid, almost like regular jello that had been stirred for a while, but I didn't want to add too much water so I went with it.
After I added my liquid to the dry ingredients, the mass was very thick and my mixer even stopped momentarily, straining to get through it. So I added some more water, 5 teaspoons. I was using my Kitchenaid 4.5 quart mixer.
I mixed it and it seemed a little sticky, kind of in between chefette's two photos of the sheet gelatin batch and the powdered gelatin batch.
I then messed around getting my kneading surface ready, say a few minutes. I forgot to cover the pastillage and it seemed in that time that it dried a bit... so that it was no longer sticky. I was able to knead it and it would stick just the tiniest amount to the heel of my hand. I didn't even need to use 10x to keep it from sticking to my mat. It seemed just about right.
I went back and measured to see how much 70 grams of water plus 8 teaspoons was and it ended up being 102 grams.
Hopefully, I'll have some time this evening to experiment with the coral.
OK, then chefette's response to this.....
Chefette: Did you melt the gelatine over heat with the vinegar and corn syrup?
You should do that. Always melt your gelatine after blooming - blooming does not equate to melting
Yes the pastillage is really thick and will pretty much bring the mixer to a halt - that is a good time to either have faith in the motor or to scrape it all out on the counter and start kneading. I find that it behaves better sometimes - worse others - I typically add a little water and really find that getting my fingers wet and then continuing to knead does really well at hydrating the pastillage.
And - the not sticking is exactly how it should go.
I am psyched to hear about your results.
On my undersea cake last summer - I bought a copy of Finding NEMO at the bookstore for the fun coral and undersea plants and replicated a bunch of them. Fun lopey things, Sort of sqare or triangular tubey horn things, and long wavy pieces. I thought those were more ocean looking and prettier than the waved pastillage.
Has your dehydrating commenced?
And finally, my comments and questions to the above:
JacqueOH:
Yes, I melted the gelatin along with the corn syrup and vinegar. That went just fine.
Dehydrating.... I assume you mean that the pastillage dries very quickly? I split the batch into two, wrapped each in plastic wrap, wrapped each of those in a damp washcloth and finally stuck them in an air-tight Ziploc bag.
Good idea on using Finding Nemo for inspiration. There really are some beautiful "underwater shots" in that movie.
I'm going to go play with my pastillage now... yep, an exciting Saturday night of sugar fun.
It is still standing as a show piece on the living room table.
