chefette

Finally – there remains how to transport your pastillage. Like all this – it depends on your project, the size, delicacy, and complexity of your piece, as well as distance to be traveled, mode of transport, time and facilities available at destination, ability to pack or carry tools and other materials. In the case of my bi-planes my original plan was to cut and dry all my pastillage at home then pack and carry it to California where I could do some sanding and assembly before packing the planes and driving them 2 hours to San Diego to put on display. Most of these pieces are flat so they are pretty easy to pack. Just provide some separation, some padding, a little care, a few toothpicks, a box that will fit in the overhead compartment as my carry on and voila. However, somehow I just didn’t have the pieces that I was satisfied with prior to leaving so I packed up two batches of fresh pastillage, my templates, Xacto knives, glue gun, sandpaper and flew to California. It is much less stressful to travel this way – however – I had to really focus and do all my work out there. But it worked out. I assembled three complete planes – so that I would have one spare and in a pinch could get by in the exhibit with one if disaster struck. After the ‘crash’ (pictured) I was very worried about the planes just collapsing under their own weight, and every jounce and bump I imagined I could hear pastillage crumbling in the back of the car. Because of the delicacy of the wings – I needed to provide them support so I packed each plane in its own box in a cushion of plastic bubble wrap. If you are decorating a cake with pastillage pieces – you may be able to attach most of the pieces to the cake. Delicate pieces such as a delicate arbor or topper should be packed separately and you should probably have a spare. I normally place a delicate topper piece on a Styrofoam square, and secure the base with toothpicks places so it will not slide. If feasible or necessary, I will also provide some plastic cushioning support. You don’t want to create a rigid unmoving environment in which your pastillage might move and break against its restraints – you want to protect it. Larger curvy pieces frequently do best packed on their sides with toothpicks securing them to Styrofoam. If you have many pieces with the same curve they can nest – but you would be safest leaving breathing room between them so that a problem does not cause the whole group to break. Most flat pieces should be packed flat and provided with some cushioning. Always always make multiples and spares and think about alternatives. Any really delicate dangerous pieces should be assembled on sight if practical. Driving your pastillage isn’t too bad if you have packed and designed well. Flying leaves you with tight size restrictions and means that your pastillage will be out of your control several times. Have extra tape on hand to retape and close boxes after they are examined by TSA. Explain to everyone who needs to examine or handle your boxes that they contain delicate sugar decorations. Try to get a seat in the rear of the aircraft – you usually board early and can secure an overhead bin – fill the extra space with your fluffy coat. Don’t sit or someone coming in will roughly push your box aside and cram in their carry on bag that is well outside the size restrictions cited. Find out what plane type you will be traveling on and see if you can get specs on the size of overhead bins. Get boxes that conform to carry on requirements since you never know when airline personnel might actually decide to abide by those guidelines – plus you do want your boxes to fit. Consider getting a friend to travel with you – but force them to come with almost nothing so they can be dedicated to carrying your boxes. Always travel with spare parts and tools, maybe even a batch of pastillage so you can redo anything that breaks. Always be gentle. That’s about it I guess – and I can see that I must have killed just about any interest anyone ever had regarding pastillage. I think that I have at least covered the bases here so get out and start making things. If you have questions, please post and we can see if we can work them out. I feel that for every thing I have told you here there are at least two more that I didn’t get to, and still things that I don’t even know about. But I think that maybe now you can start to appreciate how incredibly versatile and useful pastillage is as a pastry décor tool. Good luck everyone! I am interested to see what you do.

I wanted to get back to you about microwaving pastillage. I really don't care for the effect that much - but can appreciate the novelty. In fact - I can't claim that I have perfected the technique. Maybe Nightscotsman can give more authority on this. Anyway - I have experimented placing lumps of wet pastillage in the microwave, fried pastillage, dried pieces that I have then briefly soaked in water to rehydrate to see how that worked out, partially dried shapes and lumps. So far, my most satisfaying results come from pieces that I have cut approximately 1/2" thick, and allowed to dry (without flipping) 12-24 hours. Most of my pieces are about 20-30 grams in weight and it is not use being too detailed about the shape - the more important shape - the drier the pastillage needs to be before you wave it. I place the pastillage subject in a glass ramekin (about 3" tall and about 3" in diameter) and microwave on high about 40 seconds. The pastillage melts and bubbles up after about 15 seconds - it seems that at 30 seconds it isn't done enough to maintain height, and beyond 40 seconds you seem to start caramelizing. Let it cool briefly and then remove from the container. Working on a square of parchment or a small silpat square would prooably be best Here is my 24 hour dry piece of pastillage - wet side up (might be worth seeing how it worked with dry side up) I didn't knead this or anything - just sliced it off the lump yesterday and let it sit Here it is after 40 seconds in the microwave. I waved it on a square of parchment -(make sure your square is big enough since there is lots of expansion) Note the browned pastillage - you can carefully pick most of this off. You can see that it does bear some vague resemblance shapewise to the piece we started with. I found that microwaving drier cut pieces results in portions of them puffing up which can be fun - but this is something that you really have to play around with if you are interested. I also find that using a cylindrical container also results in a more cylindrical and rounder shape, but more difficult to remove from container without breaking. But maybe someone who does a lot of pastillage microwaving will put in their two cents.

Painting with the powders and water works out great! Normally I would dust an area or do a sort of colored sketch like the Defense Plaque so not really too much painting. I decided to do a little more extensive painting painting - the face and I really thought it worked great. Using more water and more aggressively painting in a watercolor style yields nice results. The top of the pastillage gets sort of wet and slick/sticky and is pretty much how you would work on nice watercolor paper and lets you manipulate your 'paints' more. (You can see this in the first painted face half). This also seems to result in a nice sheen once it dries. I also tried lightly spraying with spray oil. In this case I used Trader Joes Olive Oil spray. Tough to get a fine mist but after 12 hours it dried with no ill effects. The oil is not responsible for the light sheen on the painted side. I see that the other hald of the piece that was spot piped/painted retains its normal matte finish despite the spray of oil. It also did not yellow or discolor. I dusted a flat strip with two colors - transitioning from yellow to green. This I also sprayed to see the effect. It intensified the colors and yielded a light sheen. In both pieces there is a slightly oily feel to the surface - except on the half of the face that was not completely wet painted. Regarding the black ribbon on the hat: 1- I formed the pastillage brim and placed that on a former to crate the floppy brim effect 2- I formed the dome 3- I set the dome onto the brim so it would dry to match the curve of the brim as much as possible 4- I attached the dome to the brim The ribbon is gumpaste - so that I could achieve that thinness and finesse 5- I kneaded some black dust into my gumpaste. At first it appeared charcoal but the color developed as it absorbed moisture from the paste 6- I rolled out the gumpaste into a long thin strip - just as if I were planning to cut petals 7- I cut several thin strips 8- I fit a strip around the rim of the dome (there is a slight slope - plus I needed to cover up the areas where I did not have a perfect join 9- I cut the strip so that the ends just overlapped 10- I moistened the inside of the ribbon and put it in place (so in this instance the fresh wet gumpaste is applied to the dried pastillage) 11- I attached the flowy end ribbons shaping and adhering them to give some life 12 - I formed and attached the bow 13- Using a flat brush about 1/4" wide I lightly brushed black coloring onto the ribbon I cannot say that this last painting was a great idea - it is sort of risky because I could have got paint on the hat then had to redo or repair. Also, the paint doesn't dry as fast as you would like it to on the paste - especially the gumpaste because of the crisco in it. This could have resulted in the paint from the blasted ribbon marring the fondant on the cake or another decorative element.

I don't do all that much pastillage painting actually - so I don't have any special tools. I like the dusting powders for painting because we have a lot of them lying around to dust gum paste flowers. I just put a little in a small dish - dribble in a few drops of water and then use. It dries really fast so you always need to moisten your brush. It's a lot like watercolor. It's a good idea to have separate brushes for different colors. They don't just wash out of the brush with water so if you can't afford mixing - use dedicated brushes. When you paint - the water will sort of melt the top of the pastillage and you can use this to your advantage if you make a mistake - add more clear water on a brush and you can basically erase - but it affects the surface - so don't plan on doing a lot of that if you want a nice surface. A lot of the coloring I do is just dusting on a little color or coloring a whole piece. Applying a little steam will really intensify the color - but will also expose flaws. Here is something I just did to show how you can do a fairly detailed painting. And here I tried something that I had not actually ever done before. I piped the face in royal then painted by coloring and pushing the royal around while wet. I think it actually has some potential. I know that a lot of people out there actually do some really amazing and intricate painting sort of like this - only lots better. You can see that it has a completely different effect. I think it's worth working on. This didn't turn out really well - but I think it's interesting. Kneading color into the pastillage dough is a good way to achieve consistent color on large pieces or many pieces the same. Here I used dusting powder - but you can also use liquid paste. I sandwiched the blue pastillage between two pieces of white then rolled out. This will give me a subtle strip of color along the edges of my pastillage. depending on what you are doing - this can be a cool, subtle effect adding depth and complexity without crossing color lines that might draw negative attention from judges in a competition or detract from the beauty of your piece. You can also knead it up together to get a marbled effect as you might do with rolled fondant: So - depending on the time, the project, and your artistic capabilities - you can do almost anything with pastillage and color.

I intend to show you some basic painting and coloring approaches before we bring this demo to a close. I don't actually have time right now - but I promise - soon! Meanwhile here are a couple pictures of pastillage pieces from a birthday cake I just did yesterday that show some painting techniques. It was a lighthearted, colorful and 'fun' project so no Michelangelo art here. Here is a fun TV set - I have painted the screen - originally I painted the "J TV" on the screen - but didn't feel that it stood out enough so i piped it on in royal and painted that. I love this little TV - it is actually 3D but I didn't take a picture from an angle that shows that. It is one thing that I really really wanted to do on this cake but there were more important items so I literally did it when we were packing up and on our way out the door - so no backup. It worked out pretty well. If it were a more important component overall or I had had more time to fuss with it I would have made some improvements. Here is a Department of Defense Seal in pastillage that I have painted using petal dusts with water. It isn't show quality but was perfectly appropriate for a fun birthday cake commemorating the achievements of the recipient's life. You can see the back corner of the TV behind the seal on the right. It is an example of painting - I like very fine watercolor brushes. The color abosorbs almost immediately into the pastillage so you don't really get the chance to finesse it at all. I think that the working with wet royal and dusts gives you more of a painting opportunity. And lastly - here is an easy pastillage hat. The brim and bowl of the hat are pastillage - I molded the bowl of the hat in a chocolate dome mold and the brim I shaped on the posterboard former. After shaping the dome - I slid it out of the mold and let it dry on the shaped brim to minimize problems fitting them together. the ribbon is gumpaste. I kneaded some black petal dust into the gumpaste which ended up basically charcoal. I finished it by giving it a quick brush with the black powder and water to darken it up.

I put the reply in your question thread so it would be together - but I can address your question here as well. The modeling clay I would use for pastillage would be more for a showpiece where I kew the pastillage would not be in any danger of being consumed. I have created 3D sculptural effects using the modeling clay - let them air dry and then dusted them all over with corn starch before draping pastillage over them. I don't have the brand of clay I use handy - but next time I am at a craft store I will look it up. I don't think it would qualify as food safe. You CAN use it to create a form that you then make a food safe silicon mold from. Check Albert Uster Imports - Chef's fluid or Beryl's http://beryls.safeshopper.com/130/cat130.htm?463 Two places I am aware of that have food safe silicon for mold making. The Uster product is quite pricey last time I used it - maybe $50.

Albert Uster Imports sells edible silicones for mold making and can be hard or soft. Alternatively - check Beryls: http://beryls.safeshopper.com/130/cat130.htm?463 They have a variety of products for what you are trying to do.

After your pastillage has completely dried - and you should allow 12-24 hours for drying - depending on thickness of the pastillage, size of the pieces, and ambient humidity this could take more or less time. A fan can help, so too placing pieces under a lamp. But still there is more dangerous work ahead – where bad things happen and why you need to seriously overproduce. SANDING. For smaller finer pieces I like an emery board, but squares of medium or fine sandpaper are the norm. You have to have some saintly wonderful patience for sanding and some very gentle hands. Personally this is hell for me and I don’t have what it takes – so I try really hard to make my pieces as nice as they can possibly be so that I do not have to do too much sanding. Steve is a really first rate sander. And just so you know – nothing ever breaks until you are almost done sanding. Always at the last minute when you are pretty much ready to say finis – crack – it is one of the worst sounds and feelings in the world. (Surpassed only by an entire showpiece collapsing.) This is especially bad in situations where you are competing in another city and are allowed to bring your dried pastillage pieces with you or when you're doing a cake on the road for an important client. There you'll be with your carefully cut and toted pieces doing some sanding and snap, crackle or pop. Always make more than you could possibly imagine needing – especially for exhibitions and competitions. And always save your leftover pieces. You never know when you'll need them. Finally we get to assembling your pastillage. Since most people use pastillage for its architectural, structural properties some assembly will be required--and all of that should have gone into how you designed your piece to begin with. Now, real purists will swear by royal icing as the best glue – and certainly royal is good because it is edible and also because it can mask small flaws or gaps – but don’t count on this – its like thinking you can just take crappy pictures and make them all perfect using Photoshop – its doesn’t really work out all that well and it is very time consuming – better to do it right in the first place. You can gently melt some pastillage and use that as glue. It melts in about 10-15 seconds in the microwave. I do not like using the melted pastillage - It does dry fast, and that is both good and bad. Good that it will stick to your pieces fast - but bad that it dries up in the container again. Another alternative is to add some additional water and make a wetter pastillage but then you are back to the royal icing issues. (You really have to respect the cake decorators who do all that amazing string work with royal. I don't know how they manage.) You can also use molten sugar or isomalt – but that isn’t really ideal for gluing together pieces and is more for attaching pastillage and sugar together or securing the base – especially on sugar. If for some reason you were using pastillage in conjunction with chocolate you could use chocolate as glue, but we don't mix chocolate and sugar often, if at all, on a cake or showpiece. The key in gluing is to be as unobtrusive and invisible as is humanly possible. Since pastillage is not normally eaten - you can often use real glue for securing the elements of 3D constructs. However most modern competitions in which one must assemble their work in front of the judges strictly forbid the use of glue so if you are submitting your work to competitive judging it is best not to use glue since you may lose points or even be disqualified. For fun display work I prefer real glues – especially glues that set up right away – I like using a glue gun. Some people use other glues. Sometimes gluing is tricky because the pastillage is basically dried powdered sugar and you may encounter problems sometimes with the glue just not adhering, especially if you've sanded your pieces--be sure to brush or wipe the sugar dust off. Once again the need for patience and steady hands. Here are some pictures of my biplane going together: In this first picture you can see how I secured the struts to the wings. Since the struts are actually weight bearing and important to the structural integrity of the plane they needed to be securely attached so as you see here - I added small semi circles of pastillage on either side to make a safer and stronger attachment: In the background you can also see that I have secured the plane base to the fuselage. For this I did melt some pastillage and seal the seams really well, let it dry and sanded it all down - practically seamless. In this picture you see that the wheel struts are secured with the wheels. Since I was planning on my planes being airborne in my display I didn't put much thought into the wheels - but until you are ready to put it on the stand at the exhibit - guess what - it needs the frigging wheels! The ones I made really were not sturdy enough so I had to be very careful about protecting them. If I do something like this again I will come up with a more sturdy wheel solutution: The tail sections are also attached and were quite troublesome. I had to adjust the tail design by breaking them in half (the pastillage is much thicker than the cardboard and the easiest way to accommodate the fuselage neatly was to break the tails cleanly and not try to make the notch bigger. Always important to remain flexible and try to come up with the cleanest solution to the inevitable problems. The lower wing was very simple and just attached to the base of the fuselage. In these next two pictures you see the completed plane. Note that the top wing is very very thin. In something judged this might be perceived as a flaw since it is not the same width as the lower wing, but for one thing I was not competing, and the reason that I did make the top wing super thin was to reduce its weight. I wanted to minimize stress on the wing struts and the lower wing. Normally, you'd want to roll out your pastillage for pieces like this to the same thickness--using metal guide rods makes this fairly easy. The windshields worked out great I thought - I actually used gumpaste for those. They were formed in the same former as the fuselage at the locations where they needed to be fit. The engine lugs were also made with gumpaste. They were my biggest creative problem and should in theory have been easy. I tried several ways to do the lugs realistically but wasn't happy with most of them and they were quite time consuming since I needed 9 or 10 for each plane. In the end I decided to go interpretive and just made these little gumpaste cones using the tip of a wide paintbrush as a guide. The propeller attachment/nosecone was also an interesting challenge. I came up with a simple slotted foldover. When designing pieces that will be pierced by other pieces or that will pass through a slot in another piece it's imperative to ensure that the slots are big enough and that the pieces that need to fit inside or through them. It's easy to forget this when you are working with a paper model. And here is a plane up on the display stand so I can see how it looks and works: One minute later. Oops! Fortunately it wasn't the end of the world. I brought three planes to the San Diego Airport successfully and managed to install two of them on their posts (I had designed for one or two planes not knowing exactly how much interior space I would have inside the display case). In the end I had half of a case--sharing space with a Margaret Braun sugar sculpture--instead of a third so I could have made a larger piece. I was terrified that the showpiece would meet the same crash and burn fate as the test--and as a biplane might in a real dogfight--but apparently they both survived the 3 months in the case and even made it back to the shelter of the Sugar Museum's home storage. Next - coloring and packing for transport.

I wanted to add another method of shaping pastillage that does not require any equipment or forms to shape and dry. Instead of using the horizontal (top and bottom) surfaces of the pastillage think about the vertical edges. If you lay the pastillage on its side you are able to curl it and achieve many intricate and exciting shapes. Here is one example: This is how we created the curly pieces for the mermaid outline on the previous undersea cake. This will work fairly well on even a fairly large piece - you need to experiment and be prepared to add some support for larger pieces. Another trick is making curlyques. This works best on lighter strips but can be done with larger heavier pieces - it just depends on the pastillage's ability to support itself - so test it out with thickness and width: I also really like wisps and tendrils. The way that I do it is roll out a sheet of pastillage fairly thin, trim it so it has clean edges and then cut it into 3 equal strips. you sandwich these strips then cut long thin strips - I generally do a wedge with a wider end that trails to a point. Pick the threesome up by the wedge end (you can pinch this lightly if you want them to stay together, then sort of flip, spin, twist, loop to get amusing effects. Ewald Notter was the first person I saw do something like this. I usually make a bunch of these because its easy and the tendrils come in handy for all sorts of things.

JacqueOH Yes - I do mean 10g of gelatin sheets - typically 5 sheets. Fill a container - large bowl or plastic box with cold water. Drop in the gelatin sheets - I prefer to add them one at a time since they tend to clump together and do not hydrate as well if you put them in all together. For the pastillage - I recommend that you put the gelatin in to soak when you start measuring the other ingredients so that it has planty of time to soak up water. For many recipes you want to remove excess water - and this would be accomplished by squeezing the gelatin or placing it in a sieve. In this case I recommend that you just pick up the gelatine carefully out of the water - not scooping extra water - but not squeezing either. It may seem a bit sloppy but that little bit of water with it will be nice in the final pastillage. You can purchase a box of gelatin sheets from a pastry supplier - such as Albert Uster Imports - who will ship to anyone in the country. It is 500 sheets and they may last you a lifetime depending on what you do - but once you have them they last forever and you will find yourself using them more than you might expect, they're much more precise and more efficient for general pastry work than trying to use powdered gelatin. They also make nice windows for gingerbread houses. Cake decorating stores frequently carry small packets of sheets that you can purchase. But if you cannot locate the sheets - the powdered gelatin also worked just fine. The batch I made yesterday was too wet at the time - because I was uncertain how much water I should include with the gelatine to equal my hydrated sheets. I did knead in a bit if extra powdered sugar (10X) but after sitting overnight it is a very nice consistency. I'll try to microwave some pastillage for you as well. In the meantime - here is an undersea-themed wedding cake Steve and I did last summer for a pair of scuba-diving lovebirds getting married. All of the decor is pastillage, except for the goldfish which were in gum paste: and a simple, quick pastillage seashell-blown sugar pearl combination from a recent cake:

Working with pastillage (rolling, cutting, forming, drying) Almost forgot the tools French rolling pin or a clean length of PVC pipe for large pieces. I like a small roller for small pieces. Xacto knife with a fresh blade A scalpel is nice if you can get one Sharp paring knife Depending on what you are doing – you might want other tools and texturizers (limitless really) Cutters Everything you use should be very clean glass of cold water - to clean knives and to add to pastillage if needed It is also handy to have a dusting pouch. I made a little bag out of cheesecloth that I fill with cornstarch to dust with while working. You need to give yourself lead time when working with pastillage since the drying takes about 12 hours – sometimes more depending on humidity, thickness of the dough, and moisture content (the more water you introduce in making it – the more has to dry away). Don’t roll out too much pastillage since it will form a skin and start surface drying immediately – this will result in wrinkling when you cut it and especially if you are planning to form it, so start off with the least you can possibly get away with and don’t plan on doing too many pieces at once until you get comfortable and know how much time you can have. This is actually a really nice recipe and will last qite a while without suffering from cutting wrinkles but will still wrinkle when curved. I tried getting a picture - but its just very hard to capture. I cut off a chunk and knead it up (yes – every time) then roll out. If you are working with the pastillage the second day or after thawing frozen pastillage it will take several minutes for it to respond to the kneading and soften up. It is important to roll the pastillage out consistently/evenly (minimize hills and valleys – and try to roll out all pieces to the same thickness/thinness. I have to admit – I really never go to any particular lengths to ensure this – just go by feel – and run my hand over the surface to test for smooth evenness. When it matters though - you can use guides. You can use a sheeter to roll out the pastillage – but it needs to be cleaned really well of any loitering flour. This is especially handy for very large pieces. Most sheeters have a textured surface on the pads that will be transferred to the pastillage. Using a large white sheet of posterboard slide under the rolled pastillage then slide the pastillage off onto your work surface. A quick roll with the French pin should smooth it right out. For large or intricate pieces that require detailed cutting you may encounter problems with skin forming. If you have a large freezer with some space you can slip the sheet of rolled pastillage into the freezer for a few minutes. If you are working in a professioal kitchen with a proof box that is also a good place to pop the pastillage for a moment or two to moisten. Here you are trying to encourage condensation for once. This will allow you to extend your working time. I prefer to use a clothes steamer. Make your cuts smooth and clean. As with cutting puff pastry – the knife blade should be straight up and down so that the vertical edge of the cut is straight and not angled. You will thank me later when you are trying to attach pieces. If you use cutters, try to find ones that have nice tight seams or are seamless. These usually cost more but they are worth it. Following cutting it is time to place the pieces for shaping or drying flat. You may need to go back into the freeze or puff with a bit of steam. Keep in mind that the bottom surface is also drying the entire time you are working. You also want to avoid creating a wet slimy surface – you are looking for fresh dewiness – not rainstorm slick. If you have spent a while cutting you may want to hit the pastillage with a little steam before shaping. When forming, especially forms that are deep (like a nose on a face mold) or like an egg – you can loosely form the pastillage piece over the exterior of the mold first to obtain the basic shape Then place it in the cornstarch-DUSTED interior Gently, gently work it in to fit using a ball of pastillage, a ball tool, or whatever makes the most sense. This will usually make the pastillage a bit larger so you will need to trim the excess. Leave the formed pastillage in the mold for about 15 minutes or more – depending on the depth and thinness of the pastillage – you might want to let the pastillage sit for much longer in the mold. Another reason to give yourself multiple formers. Here are my cut bi-plane pieces Flat pastillage should be very flat – as perfectly flat as possible – which requires that it dry on a perfectly flat surface and dry as evenly as possible. I like styrofoam panels for drying. Even on the Styrofoam you need to flip your pieces periodically or they will tend to warp. When flipping – especially large pieces be very careful and employ a piece of poster board if necessary or even a second panel laid over the first then invert. During the drying process the pastillage is very delicate and vulnerable to breakage. Resist the temptation to pick up and test out how a piece will look because more often than not the piece will bend or most likely break. You will see how the moisture retreats from the edges toward the center. When you flip it you will typically see the moisture. Next - sanding and assembly. If you have a question about making or shaping something - please ask. I have a lot of pastillage on hand...

Back to the "I could never" thought. I was just thinking that "I don't want to" is the best reason not to. As you may be starting to see - there is some prep involved. Now, there certainly doesn't have to be this much involved in planning and as you know - a lot of this pre-decision stuff just sort of automatically goes clicking around in your head anyway. What I am trying to show is some of the facilitators and planning that can really make pastillage work for you. In my baby shower cake with the covered wagon you can see how that single element totally 'made' the cake and really it hardly took any time at all. I did take the time to cut out pieces of cardboard to test the size and ensure fit, but it was pretty simple cutting the pieces. I used a wood grain roller to texturize the pastillage. Painting and assembling went pretty easily, too. I did make 3 complete wagons just to make sure that some delivery disaster didn't leave me without my most important decor. Afterward, I stored that stupid spare wagon for months because it was so darn cute but it isn't exactly your run of the mill decoration in high demand so I recently threw it out. One of the great things about pastillage is its simple durability. As long as you don't break it and keep it clean it is always there for you. All those spare extra pieces or rejects can be used later. I always cut out rounds, and demi-circles, cut out circles with holes in the center and keep them on hand. Nickel and dime size flat circles or even thicker aspirin-sized circes are the best. You can almost always use them. Mold off a couple of solid demispheres and keep those handy, too, as legs. I have swirly tendrils, demi spheres, circles, plans, ribbon loops, curved planks, flat planks, butterfly wings, random shapes, chunks that I have microwaved so they look sort of like coral. Another good item to just keep around are placques - flat rectangular pieces. I prefer gumpaste because it is lighter and nicer, but pastillage is good too - if you need a quick special cake you just grab a bag of royal and pipe a message - embellish with some piping or add a flower and voila! Just keep your spares and unused pieces safe in a box someplace.

Cakewalk - I just did a reply but then it disappeared so here goes again Don't dig out the flour bin. 10X is Confectionary Sugar, Powdered sugar, or Icing Sugar the 10X refers to the fineness Soory about the shorthand.

Ekaterina Wow - sounds like a big move. I hope it goes well. Doing pulled and blown sugar at home is actually great! You hardly need any equipment at all for one thing - you can get by with a microwave and a sugar lamp - or just a sugar lamp. You don't need a sugar box - in a pinch you can set up barriers to keep your work environment warm using cardboard folders. I like doing sugar at home because I can have dedicated space, its calm and quiet and I don't have to worry about anyone else knocking things around. You do need your basic sugar equipment: Heat lamp, silpats, I like working with a cool blower, alcohol lamp, sugar pump, silicone leaf presses. I usually have plastic boxes with containers of dessicant to put completed items in so they stay nice. I also like the flexipan large rounds- maybe 6-7" and about 1/2-3/4 inches deep that I keep my sugar in while working. This also makes it easy to shuttle it to the microwave for a quick zap if it gets a bit too cold.

Genny There are really so few things in the entire world that should make you say "I could never"... And pastillage is so far far away from being something "that I could never". Now, it does help to have an artistic bent or a mechanical aptitude. Good sources of inspiration are books on paper sculpture. Sure, pastillage is much different in character than paper - but paper engineering and sculpture can give you many ideas how to create something interesting and 3-D using flat elements. Admittedly most paper sculpture work is sort of 2-D in the sense that it is usually put together into a sort of picture, but look at things like pop-up books, doll furniture kits, fun lamps. Some things are harder than others - but you don't have to be all realistic - tha is the beauty here - you can do interpretive things or suggestive things. You can work completely flat in cutouts and paint, you can build up many flat layers, you can add seperators to bring in extra elements of dimension. I don't know how to explain how to look at things and deconstruct them so you look at a car or a tree or a TV set and think, how could I make one in pastillage? How will I interpret this object? Make it 3-D?, make it 2-D? Make it realistic or stylized? what size will be appropriate and convenient? what can I use to form it? will it be freestanding or supported? Is it a foreground element or a supporting element? Colored or white? rustic or finessed? If someone wanted a kitchen in pastillage on their cake - what approach would you take? what pops into your head right away? I see a Jetsons kitchen with pastel appliances - 3D free standing, pieces would pretty much be curvey and narrower at the bottom, wider at the top. I think that pieces that are sort of rounded would be great - but maybe it is easier to make them more angular so I don't have to deal with connecting curves. Bring some fun to it - you have royal icing and gumpaste available to you to do smaller, more complex, delicate elements that lift the piece to a more exciting level.

You should soak the bowl and paddle as soon as you scrape out the pastillage dough so that the pastillage remnants don’t harden on them. Some recipes really need to rest overnight to allow even absorbtion of the moisture, but others work quite well immediately. If you don’t use all the pastillage – you may freeze it for future use. Upon thawing, the pastillage will be very stiff, sort of crumbly, but some kneading and warming (from your hands but 5 or 6 seconds in the microwave can aid you) will bring it back to a nice workable consistency. Tomorrow I will demo techniques to roll, cut, and form the pastillage.

Making pastillage This is the pastillage recipe that I like most right now. It is from Ewald Notter. I will make a second batch with Light corn syrup instead of glucose and powdered gelatin just to see if that makes any difference. 850g 10x 150g cornstarch 10g gelatin 30g glucose 15g white vinegar for the second batch 850g 10X 150g cornstarch 2 envelopes powdered gelatin dissolved in 125 g cold water (too much – try 60g) 30g light corn syrup 15 g white vinegar - Place the glucose (or corn syrup) and white vinegar in a small pan - Bloom the gelatin in cold water. Start this while you are prepping your sugar and starch so it has plenty of time to soak up water – you want it well hydrated. (For the second recipe with powdered gelatin I used 125g water and I felt that was too much – so I would cut back to maybe 60-80g) - Weigh and sift your powdered sugar and corn starch together so they are well combined - Place the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and warm your wet ingredients with the bloomed gelatin and let that melt – but not get too hot - Gradually pour the melted gelatin mix into the dry ingredients while stirring with the paddle on the slowest speed - Let that stir until it all comes together then turn it out onto a very clean surface dusted with 10X and knead until smooth The batch with the powdered gelatin is too soft and sticky to use today because there is too much water - but I think that overnight the starch and sugar will absorb the extra moisture and it will probably be fine. There does not seem to be any difference otherwise - so, we'll see how it behaves after 12 hours. The other pastillage can be used right away. - If it seems too dry and crumbly moisten your hands and continue kneading – repeat until the consistency is smooth and cleans up the surface The pastillage dough is something like bread dough but not as soft or sticky. I typically cut it in half and wrap the halves seperately, then put them in a ziplock bag with a damp towel.

This is how I made the former for my bi-plane fuselage: As you can see - I created a heavier card that was longer and wider than the fuselage. I took rectangles of mailla folder and fitted them over the cardboard fuselage at six points that I marked. I folded up the base of each of these ribs so they could stand on their own. I cut slots in the base card that the ribs could just fit through then taped the flaps on the bottom Afterwards - I curled a fuselage shaped piece to fit inside the ribs. It fit really snugly so I did not actually have to tape that. It worked out really well since it was very compact, I could pack it flat and put it together in California. Obviously it has suffered in the return trip and storage since I did not bother taking it apart to come home. Just flattened it and stuffed it in an envelope. Now I have disassembled all my taping so I could show you the components. You can do things over an inverted shape but the down side is that the pastillage does not want to remain in contact with anything outside its flop scope - doesn't stick so just hangs there - so if you want sides that come in after the curve you have to figure out a way to accomplish that. A parchment sleeve that can be taped to the form is a good solution since this will hold your pastillage where you want it while it sets up.

Initially - I spent alot of time trying to find a plastic Bi-plane model that I could use to just lay the pastillage in or on. Turned out that they just don't have a lot of plastic bi-plane models and that they are either really small or way too big. They also connect right up the spine of the plane so that there would be a big seam right up the middle that would be a pain to conceal. Lastly - I discovered that airplane model makers seem to be compulsive about recreating every rivet and cannot seem to keep those puppies in scale so the plane models are sort of bumpy and not smooth. Those factors completely nixed the easy option that I had considered using. Oh well. Hence back to the drawing board. Making the model, templates, and forms probably took me a solid 4 hours. I could say I just threw it together in 15 minutes but I get so frustrated when people toss out things like that, that I know for a fact take concentration and time, then when it takes you all day you feel like you must be a lightweight. So, for a fairly complex form like the plane that I had to test out I would set aside some time when you have peace and quiet and can think. Plus you make a mess of manila bits and scraps of tape and staples. But that work really pays dividends in the end. At the first US Pastry Team Championships in Beaver Creek, we all flew in a week ahead of time, and I remember Ewald Notter spending two days early in the week just building forms and rolling out pastillage. He of course had brought fully-dried and finished pastillage pieces, but he had the time, so he just kept making more. You can never have enough back up. (He won that year.) Fortunately all of my husband's pastillage (eG's own Steve Klc) and backups arrived safely--including his 3 foot long curvy pieces--so we didn't have to make more.

K8 Both the royal blue and the white pieces are foam core. It was blue on one side and white on the other and I thought that the color contrast would make it easier to see online. Sorry for the confusion. In the picture with the manila folder forms - the white substance is pastillage. To make this go faster I am combining some step by step pictures I took in January with new ones. I actually thought that the forms I created for my Bi-plane fuselage was a brilliant solution. I was so happy with how it worked out that I think that for smaller pieces it is completely the way to go. I will take some pictures and post them this afternoon so you can see how that worked.

Thanks for all the compliments - I really appreciate them. But I hope that this is helpful to you as well - and don't forget - ask questions. Here is installment number two: Deciding on a design Before you get started with your pastillage, it is important to decide what you will do – make a plan, a design, even an architecture to figure out how to create your vision, what pieces need to be, how they need to be cut, shaped, dried, how it will stand up, balance, support… If you are doing a design for a client – then you usually have that guidance and just have to make the decisions about how you will execute it – make it a reality. Interpretive or realistic? Sturdy or airy? All sorts of decisions. This winter I was invited to contribute a sugar showpiece to an exhibit at the San Diego Airport – I immediately leapt to visions of airplanes – but then aviation is sort of a family history thing and I had been toying with an idea for a while and this was a chance to make it a reality. Here is a photo of the type of biplane that I wanted to do. Here is how I made it a reality: I drew out the basic plane. In this case I had some size restrictions that I had to observe. I needed the plane to be fairly small since I was going to be sharing a 24” square case with two other pieces. But I wanted the plane to be large enough that I could have some fun with the details and it would show up. So I started with the wingspan and worked from there. Normally – I would probably need a lot more detailed input to a design – but I pretty much grew up with several of these planes and used to sketch them all the time so I have the design internalized. Finding or creating the facilitators to execute your design Once you have your design and templates and everything is sized out you might want to create a test piece in cardboard to get a sense of how it will actually go together. This will also prove your logic if you are doing something 3D that is tricky and involved. Manila filing folders are perfect for templates and mock ups. I cut my pieces and crated a mock up in manila folder paper, then took it all apart and made the cutting templates. Since I needed the shaped cockpit I also created a shaping form to make it curved. I cut it to the exact size of the cockpit template so that I would not mistake its exact location and get pieces that would not fit together. I also knew that I would need three or four and that I had a very short time frame to do my work – plus high humidity in So. Cal at that time meant slow drying. So I made 4 shaping template forms. If you are not doing something as specific as that – more form and motion you can use objects around the kitchen or house to shape your pastillage – if you don’t want to keep it all flat. Achieving the shapes and forms you want can be tricky. You can employ many items to assist you: Plastic molds Cardboard forms Cups, bottles, bowls Modeling clay, plaster… Just make sure that it will not adhere to the pastillage or release color or unwanted texture. And dust with cornstarch before laying your pastillage on anything. You often have to make your own forms. In creating a form you should be very patient and precise. A good way to create a larger form that will be used to shape a large piece of pastillage or to shape many smaller pieces in the same way is to build a form using foam core and poster paper. You can use corrugated cardboard – but foam core really holds up well and is easier to work with all around. Get white posterboard and I usually keep the shiny side up – the pastillage will rest on that. You also need an Xacto knife – and it’s a good idea to work with a nice new blade. I don’t have anything in mind – so I am just creating a generic form to show how one would go about it. I cut a piece of foam core as the base and then cut pieces (all the same size) that will be the ‘ribs’. You can see that I drew guidelines so that the ribs would line up. I also attached each rib with a toothpick then taped the joints. I attached the poster board to the ribs at one side using scotch tape so that I know it will be even on the side and left it as a flap. Then I attached strips of heavy duty double sided tape along the top of each rib. You could do all this with your trusty glue gun too – but then taking it all apart later to store is more difficult. Then I just flipped over the poster board and attached it to the ribs and taped down the other side. Voila – a form. You can see on this form that I would have problems if I required something really exact and if I was planning to use most of the area right out to the edges. More ribs, use of a side piece, or extending the posterboard down lower would all address this. But you always need to create or find the template or form that is appropriate to what you are doing. If your piece needs to be perfectly exact then you need to make your form perfectly exact. Also - I would probably build a guide or create some sort of border so that each piece I formed on this would be as close as possible to the exact same specs in its curvature. This still only curves your pasillage in one dimension. Really interesting, challenging pieces curve out of the second plane into a third plane (dimension - not airplane) I am starting to feel like Walt Disney with all this if you can dream it you can do it stuff - but...the reality is most of the pastillage you will do will not be this complicated--you'll cut and dry flat pieces or very simply curved pieces. Tomorrow I will make pastillage.

Thanks for the nice compliments - I feel all 'aw shucks' Yes K8memphis- I will be providing some recipes that I use and a few that I found doing research. Yes Wendy - you can use those plastic candy molds - or those detailed cookie or chocolate molds that they sell, bowls, vases, lots of stuff. That is one of the things I will be dealing with in the next installment--but that's how I made those cactus shapes on the above cake: pastillage pressed into a cheap plastic mold, then turned out, dried, sanded and painted. Nice visual payoff, limited investment of time, perfect for a cake on a budget where you're not trying to pull out all the stops.

Hi There Wendy asked me to do a demo on pastillage - so I thought I might as well get started since it has been a couple of weeks. I plan to do this in several installments - so please be patient. I would not really consider myself a great expert on pastillage --when Steve and I competed nationally he usually did the pastillage ahead of time and I concentrated on the pulled and blown sugar--but these days I do use it quite often and usually have some dough on hand in the freezer - it is a great go-to tool in pastry decor as long as you have a day or two for it to dry. Anyway, as a way to give a little back to the forum I'll share some of my experiences with pastillage over the next few days and talk about what pastillage is, how to design and prepare for a pastillage piece, how to make, use and assemble with pastillage, and then pack in order to move pastillage from place to place. There's real skill in deciding what you can do ahead, what has to be done on-site, and how to get it there safely. I welcome questions and will have some pastillage handy, so if you have any burning questions about pastillage - please ask. So, let's get started - shall we? What is pastillage? I thought I would start out by explaining exactly what pastillage is – and after checking around on the web – it appears that there is more diversity in what people think of as pastillage than I had realized. Here are a couple of definitions of pastillage that I found on the web: “A paste mixture used for making molded decorations. Works especially well on flowers and leaves used to decorate wedding cakes.” (I believe that this is actually referring to what I think of as gumpaste – which is more elastic, used in very very thin sheets, and makes excellent flowers) From Baking 911: “Pastillage is rolled Fondant without any of the softening ingredients (glycerin corn starch or shortening). It is used mainly for decorative ribbons, three dimensional shapes and appliqués because it dries bone-dry and crusts more quickly than Fondant.” From chefsimon (original in french – my translation here): “It is a paste for decorations composed primarily of confectionary sugar. There are many recipes depending on the smoothness desired and these are closely guarded secrets! Of course there exists for less exacting among us simple receipes but which prohibit a real work of smoothness or precision.” I tend to agree with chefsimon, all except for the closely guarded secrets bit. Pastillage can be made different ways and of course can be used for pretty much anything you can think of, but generally it is sort of a decorative and structural pastry workhorse. Because it is stable, dries hard, is relatively strong and durable it generally provides bases, supports, ‘skeletons’ of decorative efforts upon which more delicate items are displayed. Pastillage is often used in conjunction with gumpaste and other sugar work like pulled and blown sugar. It has been used to build petits fours stands, cake stands, containers, long lasting cake toppers, etc--it's also been used to build churches, replicas of airplanes, it can even be sanded, carved and sculpted. While it is often left perfectly white, it can also be colored or painted. Pastillage, while made 100% of edible ingredients, is what might be termed "technically edible." First of all – pastillage is hard and crisp – essentially like Necco wafers. Depending on the recipe used it could be unpleasant to eat. For instance all the recipes I use involve vinegar. Personally, I have never been tempted to eat any pastillage. I feel that while it might amuse children it's not something you would want to include on your menu for any purposes other than decorative. Fondant, gum paste, sugar paste, and pastillage are all related but have critical differences. Fondant (and there are several kinds) remains soft for quite a while and makes a great cake covering – you can use it to make decorations but they lack the finesse and delicacy of décor created from gumpaste or pastillage. Fondant will harden up given time, but essentially remains soft. Gumpaste recipes also vary extensively but typically involve gum tragacanth. The dough is very elastic and soft – more so than pastillage. Gumpaste can be rolled out thinner than pastillage, as thin as parchment, and it makes lovely flowers and petals. It can be worked longer than pastillage--meaning it is a little more forgiving, you can take longer to do what you want to do with gumpaste before it crusts than you can with pastillage. With pastillage, you have to work very quickly, make your cuts and shape it as quickly as possible. Both will hold up fairly well in humidity, but gumpaste will take on moisture more readily from the environment and other sources (such as buttercream). It is never as sturdy as pastillage. Check this site to see pictures and information on some very cool historic pastillage creations--and realize pastillage has been used as a decorative medium for hundreds of years. Note the intricate molds. This makes one think about the close association of various artisans in the households of the aristocracy and how the changing social and economic conditions of the world have influenced pastry. http://www.historicfood.com/Royal-sugar-Sculpture.htm On this site, you can see a really nice pastillage Taj Majal: http://www.geocities.com/ferriscakes/Misc.html Uses for pastillage How you use pastillage depends on what you do. For a wedding cake artist, we've already mentioned that pastillage would be used for cake toppers, décor, possibly a cake stand. For a pastry chef in a hotel or restaurant, pastillage might provide the structure for a centerpiece for a buffet table or the stands for petits fours or other mini-dessert items. Unlike chocolate, which could melt, and sugar, which could absorb humidity, pastillage is relatively indestructible. (Pastry chefs often save pastillage for a long time and recycle pieces again and again...) Pastillage remains somewhat obscure, if not completely foreign, in daily life in America, but you can still see it in competition work. Here are a couple items I have made with pastillage over time - some also employ gumpaste. Multi-media sugar art is a good thing. It gives you variety and depth that is hard to achieve in a single sugar medium. This is some very early work of mine from a competition in NYC. It is an example of pastillage as a petits fours stand--the petits fours were the "requirement"--I hoped making all the stands edible would help make a better impression on the judges, and it did: Here is even older work, my very first pastillage & sugar showpiece. A funky violin concept which admittedly, in retrospect, could have been improved upon with better planning - but I did it under pressure (it was one of 5 different showpieces I had to assemble and display that day at the same time) and considering the way I was shaking when I put it together I feel fortunate that it didn't end up a pile of rubble. This is an example of larger pieces that are curved in two dimensions--drying and assembling curved pieces is much more difficult than flat. In case it is not obvious - it is a sort of deconstructed violin with blown sugar birds (who are presumably enjoying the melodious tunes). The challenge in this was my interest in having pieces pierce through one another and undulate. My mock up in cardboard worked out great - but it is really important to keep inmind that dry pastillage has no flexibility whatsoever. Here is an example of a quick ad-hoc pastillage construction used as cake decor--note the tree trunks are rolled while the "snowflake" foliage were stamped out with a cutter: Another cake decor implementation, this time a bridal shower cake for my sister. Here the pastillage is painted using petal dusts with water. Originally I had a completely different plan - but due to some problems on the road from DC to Boston that resulted in breakage I had to improvise. I was pretty happy with the result: Here is another, more traditional, cake decoration piece--for a 50th birthday cake for a Harvard grad--where I used pastillage to provide stability and combined it with gumpaste pieces that were lighter and more delicate: And here is a fun Baby shower cake - (the mother to be provided Cowboy Cody pictures of the zillion items that would be employed in the baby's room - I tried to follow suit.) The wagon itself is pastillage but the wagon top is gumpaste. Otherwise all the other decor--campfire, cactus, stones, etc--is pastillage: Next installment: Design and preparation

TIVO'ed it and got to see two episodes in a row. LOVED it! If I had 5 more hours on TIVO I would have stayed up and watched those too. I thought it was great! Hey - if you have the nerve to compete for your own restaurant then you have to expect to sweat it out. Seems like he is just doing drill sergent boot camp routine that gets the people to get in gear, work together and comprehend the job. Even the nice chefs I worked for were more than mean enough to make their staffs cry. I worked for one of the 'Genius Chefs' referenced earlier in this thread and it was no different. Reamed people all the time threw out huge batches of mise and product once dumped all the garbage out on the kitchen floor because he saw a silver fork in the barrel - turned out there were several pieces of silver in the trash Looking forward to more episodes I thought that Exec Chef Chris really turned out great - he made it possible for his team to function. Same with the (greek?) chef on the blue team. What would you have made if told you had 45 minutes to make a signature dish for GR?

I like it. The online pdf seems a bit high level but I guess this is the first issue and it is really nice to sort of get a clipping and translation service on the best international sources like Thuries, Pasticceria Internazionale, etc. I am looking forward to seeing more.