Bubble sugar

[chefpeon]

Thanks Neil!

I had a feeling I shouldn't have shocked the pan......guess I just needed an expert to confirm it.

I took a class in pulled and blown sugar several years ago. I love the art of it. I had fun the first

day I tried it, but the blisters that formed on my hands from handling the hot sugar made it PURE TORTURE from the second day on. I formed the opinion that I really didn't want to pursue doing any more sugar work from then on because it was too damn painful. My instructor told me that if you do it a lot you form callouses on your hands and the heat doesn't bother you anymore. I didn't even want to try to form the callouses, so I just bagged it.

So what do you do? Do you wear special gloves? Do you just grin and bear the heat? Do you have callouses on your hands?

[nightscotsman]

Well, I've only done sugar in school, so who knows if I'll have to a chance to do any of it later in my career. We don't have much call for pulled sugar at work, and when we do the chefs take care of it.

In school, some people had problems with blisters, but not from the heat of the sugar. The main problem was the friction produced by the pulling very thin rose petals for a full day. The sugar we used was actually not that hot to handle. In fact, the instructors told us that you don't want it too hot or it will be dull. So we used the sugar just warm enough to be pliable, which meant that it was very stiff, so you really had to use a lot of pressure to pull it thin. We used latex gloves only to keep finger prints and moisture off of the sugar.

[bkeith]

In school, some people had problems with blisters, but not from the heat of the sugar. The main problem was the friction produced by the pulling very thin rose petals for a full day. The sugar we used was actually not that hot to handle. In fact, the instructors told us that you don't want it too hot or it will be dull. So we used the sugar just warm enough to be pliable, which meant that it was very stiff, so you really had to use a lot of pressure to pull it thin. We used latex gloves only to keep finger prints and moisture off of the sugar.

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I wear a thin cotton glove liner under the latex gloves. Helps with the heat problem and the friction problem. I agree - the heat isn't nearly as much a problem as the friction. But the heat can still get uncomfortable after a while, especially working with Isomalt. Without the liner, I have to take breaks from it regularly as the sweat builds up inside the glove and acts as a conductor. With the liner, I can work for hours with no problem.

The only time I've gotten a blister from pulled sugar was when I wasn't thinking. Tried to shortcut the warming process by heating a chunk of sugar in the microwave. 10 second bursts, then check. Didn't realize the turntable in the micro was off its track, so one spot was getting all the microwaves. Would've been too smart to have a glove on when I went in the third time to check the sugar. My thumb went right into molten sugar.

Did you know that when you burn your thumb that your reflex is to clench your fist? Neither did I. So now I had molten sugar on my thumb AND my palm. Had to get that taken care of, stop the cooking of my hand, and still slip on a glove and pull a few roses. Ouch.

[hayasaka.k]

I never knew there were different kinds of "bubble sugar", are there specific names for each or are they just known by their respective methods?

The one I was taught at school resembled the "alcohol" one in the rose piece, but we made it by pouring the same sugar used for pulling onto selamin (sp.?)paper. [i'm a Chinese-Canadian student with limited French taught by a French chef with limited English, so I'm approximating his pronounciation.] It looks *just* like regular parchment, except as you tilt the molten sugar back and forth over itself it forms bubbles. Then you drape it over various objects for shape as it cools.

As for the paper itself, I tried Googling various spellings but came up empty. The sugar always peeled off effortlessly and the paper is reusable. I recall chef remarking that it was more costly here than parchment, but in France it was what everybody used because it was cheaper.

Side: I apologize for any grammar/spelling atrocities, it's 06:10 into the next day and I can't stop reading!