Last night, ICE students took part in a very special demo with ICE Pastry & Baking Arts Chef Instructor and sugar expert Kathryn Gordon who assembled a sugar showpiece from scratch.
Working only with sugar, she created a fun, seasonal showpiece featuring classic sugar techniques. She demonstrated how to pour and cast sugar and how to aerate it so that it can be blown into round shapes or pulled into ribbons or petals. She also used pastillage, an opaque sugar dough, to make snowflakes. The completely edible showpiece featured a variety of textures and colors to be a true aesthetic masterpiece.
As she created and assembled the pieces in real time she emphasized the importance of assembling the pieces on the showpiece rather than trying to glue them together later. Rather than trying to fit the pieces together awkwardly and break them, she recommended creating delicate features like birds and flowers directly on the final showpiece. Decorating into position in this way helps to keep delicate pieces from breaking but also to create visual balance when you see the sculpture take form. It was a rare opportunity for ICE students and alumni to see a sugar showpiece created and assembled in real time. The fine art and craft of sugar work creates truly amazing and beautiful pieces of art.
