No. 3627

Sugar for Casting in Molds

Sucre a Couler dans les Moules

Place some lumps of sugar in a copper pan; pour over sufficient water to soak and leave till dissolved, when mix in a few drops of acetic acid and cook to 245 degrees; then remove from the fire, color a light blue with ultramarine blue and rub it against the sides of the pan with a wooden spoon to grain it. Pour it at once into molds; plaster ones are generally used for this purpose, having them properly dipped in cold water, then well drained and tied around firmly with a string so that the sugar cannot escape from the joints of the mold. After the mold is full wait until the sugar congeals on top, then break this thin crust and turn the mold upside down to empty out all the liquid sugar in order to have the subject hollow in the center. Unmold carefully, removing each piece one by one; pare them neatly and leave to cool in a dry, but not a hot place.

LARGE PIECES (Grandes Pieces).

← No. 3626 To Spin Sugar by Throwing Confectionery No. 3628 Baskets Filled with Candied Fruits, or Ice C →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a sugar-casting method for hollow decorative showpieces rather than something meant to be eaten, and two of its materials are the reason it cannot be reproduced today.

Ultramarine blueThe colorant called for is a mineral pigment, not a food color. Artificial ultramarine is not approved for use in food in the United States, and nineteenth-century colorants were sometimes adulterated with metallic compounds. Nothing colored this way should go near a plate.
Unlined copper plus acidConfectioners' sugar pans of this period were typically unlined copper, and here the pan holds an acidified syrup that is then scraped with a wooden spoon. Acid and hot sugar in prolonged contact with bare copper can leach copper into the mass.
Plaster moldsPlaster of Paris casts are porous and soak up water by design, as the recipe's dipping step assumes. They are studio equipment, not food-contact material.
What the temperature means"Cook to 245 degrees" is Fahrenheit on a confectioner's thermometer, around the firm-ball stage. The deliberate rubbing against the sides of the pan seeds crystallization and gives the opaque, stone-like finish.
The hollow trickBreaking the surface crust and pouring off the still-liquid center is the same principle as a hollow chocolate mold: only the chilled shell against the mold face has set. It is sound technique and survives in modern cast-sugar work, done with silicone or metal molds and permitted colors.
If you want to make oneUse a current cast-sugar or isomalt recipe with food-grade coloring and food-grade molds. This page is worth reading as a record of method, not as working instructions.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summary of thirty years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and its confectionery chapter belongs to the world of the pièce montée — the architectural sugar centerpiece generally traced to Antonin Carême, who trained as a pastry cook and treated sugar, nougat and pastillage as building materials. A cast-sugar figure or ruin was furniture for the table rather than dessert; it stood through the meal and was admired, not served. The heading "Grandes Pièces" that follows in the original marks the beginning of the large-format showpiece section.