Monday, May 25, 2009

The Art of Sugar Work

Learning from a French chef has been on my wish list for sometime now. Last week, this became a reality when I attended a three day course on The Art of Sugar Work at The French Culinary School in Asia.

The course was conducted by Master Pastry Chef Jean-Francois Arnaud.

I decided to explore sugar work to find out if I can incorporate the sugar techniques into cake decorating. The possibility is endless. All you need is a creative mind and the rest is history.

We learned how to make lollies, Berlingot, jewelleries, assemble a showpiece (just like the ones at a buffet table at hotels) and shape sugar into figurines. We also learned how to cast sugar and blow sugar.

One of the many lollies:
These are the jewelleries that I made during the class. Sugar moulded into beads:

The end result:

If you are planning to take up this course, be prepared to burn your fingers ... even after wearing a double layer of gloves. You will be working with hot sugar under a very hot lamp.

Learning the right temperature to work with sugar is essential and you have to work fast before the sugar hardens. It's all about what works for you when moulding sugar.

I loved watching Jean-Francois create his masterpieces. He works fast, calm at the same time and so graceful. One of my friends who attended this course said that seeing Jean-Francois is like watching ballet. I truly agree.

Two showpieces by the master chef:

I enjoyed this course very much despite burning my fingers. It's worth every sen. Some of the pictures used here are courtesy of The French Culinary School in Asia.

My showpiece:



2 comments:

PG CakeCraft said...

hi Yuha, just came by your wonderful site. wow! just luv seein pics of "the art of sugar work". u r very lucky to hve attended the course.

yuha said...

Thank you for visiting my site, PG CakeCraft. The course was very informative and was an eye opener. Enjoyed it very much. :)

 

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