•History of sugar

•Sweeteners 

•Cane Sugar

•Sugar and its impact on art and human beings

•Marchepane

•Molded

•Types of  “Sugar Paste”

•Gum paste

•More pliable,  will  absorb moisture and soften even after drying

•Cast sugar:

•Molded and/or applied flatwork

•Pastillage:

•Constructed from  pieces over armature

•Sculpted  over armature

•Dries brittle and rock hard

•Pressed sugar:

•Carved from sugar block

•Pulled sugar

•Ancient sweeteners

•Honey, sometimes crystalized since ancient Egypt

•Must derivatives from grapes, sapa or defrutum

•Maltose, malt sugar from germinating grains

•“manna” – either tree exudations, or insect exudations (i.e., honeydew from aphids)

•Sweet Sorghum from Africa (brought to New World from Europe)

•Sugar Cane, originating in India, c2000 years ago also introduced to New World by Europeans, known by the Romans (Pliny) as Sacchron, probably in raw exudate form.

•Cultivated in Egypt by 8th c Crusaders brought refined cane sugar to northern Europe by 11th c

•Original Arabic name sukkar. In the Durham Account Rolls of 1299 it appears in its earliest English form zuker, as in Zuker Roch (rock sugar) and Zuker Marrokes (Moroccan sugar). the word “candy” is derived from the Persian qand, while syrup is a corruption of the Arabic sharab.  In 1040, a document tells of a sultan who ordered 73,000 kg of sugar for a sugar paste that included a tree, not saying what size…

•At first, treated like a spice due to its rarity and expense in Europe.

•Venezia controlled sugar trade at first, with the first large shipment to England recorded in 1319. 100,000 lbs of sugar and 1000 lbs of candy sugar. This premiership changed when the Portuguese started producing sugar cane in the Azores after 1420

•Used as a way to preserve fruits and flowers, and in lozenges or twisted sticks of pulled sugar called alphenics, penidia, penides, pennets, penyds. 

•First anecdotal use of sugar as actual candy in Europe was a French druggist in 1200 who coated almonds with sugar – the famous Jordan almonds at weddings.

•By 1475, sugar was being produced in Crete and Sicily as well as India and Arabia and was given as gifts between princes. 

•In 1513, sugar and the making of sugar paste was abundant enough with the aristocracy that the King of Portugal sent the Pope a lifesize portrait sculpture of the Pope and 12 cardinals out of sugarpaste.

• Refined sugar was still full of impurities, so before it could be used in confectionery, it had to be clarified by boiling in clear water with egg white and then straining it through linen. The resulting syrup could then be bo

•By 1550, the Spanish and Portuguese were bringing sugar cane production to the coast of western Africa as well as the Caribbean, Brazil, and Mexico and by the end of the 16th century Spanish shipments of sugar to Europe were averaging 1600 tons per year

•The word comfit was used in the medieval period to describe any number of sweet tidbits, but by the 16th century a cumfit became know as specifically a seed, nut or small piece of spice surrounded by sugar.

•In the 16th and 17th century, muskadines, or kissing comfits for sweetening the breath by scenting sugar paste with scents, or flowers, and cutting them into small shapes.

•In France in 1571, sugar had become common enough that a huge “collation” followed a banquet for the Queen of Charles IX – tables covered with “foods” made from sugar paste and 6 large sculptures telling the tale of Athena bringing peace to Athens.

•Sugarpaste decorations had become a staple for the grand table. Robert May was a celebrated cook during the reigns of Elizabeth, James and Charles and described a stag that bled claret wine when an arrow was removed from its flank.

•Slavery

•The first major  uptick in slavery can be directly linked to the demand for sugar, leading to the use of slaves for labor on sugar plantations.  It was the largest increase in the sale and abduction of people into slavery until the demand for rum (made with sugar cane) and the American slave trade would begin 100 years later. Providing labor for Caribbean plantations was seen as a constant problem. Initially, Amerindians (mostly Arawaks and Caribs) had been enslaved and ordered placed in encomiendas (land grants) by the Spanish. Europeans demanded labor in exchange for their “protection” and “civilization,” almost completely destroying indigenous populations and cultures. Many indigenous peoples resisted and were killed, and others fled into the most inaccessible regions of the interior of large islands and the mainland. Those who were not as fortunate succumbed to European diseases. In Mesoamerica, the population declined from 25.2 million in 1519 to 16.8 million in 1532 and 0.75 million in 1622. As entire villages of Amerindians disappeared, Europeans turned to other available sources of labor, including Africans and Europeans. Bridging World History,

•Health concerns

•Examinations of teeth from remains at Pompeii show older adults with healthy teeth – medieval remains similarly show  relatively healthy teeth.  After the introduction of sugar into the aristocratic diet,  tooth decay became rampant, as did the accompanying diseases of obesity, gout, diabetes, heart disease.

Of Elizabeth I regarding her sweet tooth and its effects: "Her teeth are very yellow and unequal, compared with what they were formerly, so they say, and on the left side less than on the right. Many of them are missing so that one cannot understand her easily when she speaks quickly." December 8, 1597, the French Ambassador, Andre Hurault, 

Marzapane (marchepan) as normally seen, is a softer paste, though Gum Tragaganth and more sugar can be added until the familiar soft paste can be sculpted and take more details like sugarpaste. It is traditionally sculpted into shapes and colored.  It can be glazed with eqq white or glucose.

Le petit lissé   Smooth, sleeked, full syrup, small thread   215° - 220° F.

Le grand lissé   Great thread, Manus Christi   220° F.

Le petit perlé little pearl, pearled   223° F.

Le grand perlé great pearl   225° F

La petit queue de cochon the little pig’s tail  227° F.

La grande queue de cochon the great pig’s tail   229° F.

Au soufflé, a rozat blown, bloom, candy height, blown away   230° - 235° F.

Le petit plume small feathers, little feather   240° F.

Le grand plume large feather, casting height   245° F.

Le petit boulet little ball, small bullet, soft ball,   247° F.

Le gros boulet great ball, new ball, fondant   250° F

Petit cassé Small crack, spinning height   280-290° F

Grand cassé Broken, cracked, crack, crackled, snap, large crack   312° F.

Le caramel or à brulé Caramel, carmel, carmeled, burnt   350° F.

•Pennets, or Penides were lozenges made by cooking sugar with “healing ingredients” to the hard crack stage; pulling the sugar and then cutting into dosage sized pieces., Sugar is boiled with water (modern, with glucose) to just below hard crack stage (burning smell in old parlance) remove pot from heat at about 330 degrees, and let it get to 335-338. 

•Pour onto Silpat or marble rubbed with oil.  Using insulated nitrile gloves – start pulling the sugar over and over, stretching etc.  Watch for it to get to the desired consistency for working, too soft and it will slump back into a liquid form, too hard and it will crack. 

This form was rarely used in period as it so very quickly goes from ready, to burned.  It would have taken a true expert, and probably multiple fails without a thermometer.

•“Take gumme and dragant as much as you wil, and steep it in Rosewater til it be mollified, and for foure ounces of suger take of it the bigness of a beane, the iuyce of lemon, a walnut shel ful, and a little of the white of an eg.  But you must first                 take the gumme, and beat it so much with a pestel in a brazen morter, till it be come like water, then put to it the iuyce with the white of an egge, incorporating al these wel together, this done take four ounces of fine white suger wel beaten to powder, and cast in into the morter by a little and a little, until they be turned into the form of paste, then take it out of the said morter, and bray it upon the powder of suger, as it were meale or flower, until it be like soft paste, to the end you may turn it, and fashion it which way you wil”….(Dawson 1596)

•“To make Past Royall white. Take a pound of refined suger beaten and searsed, and put into an Alabaster morter, with an ounce of Gum-tragacant, steeped in Rose water, and if you 39 see your Past bee too weake, put in more suger, if too drie, more gumme, with a droppe or two of oyle of Cynamon, so that you neuer deceiue your selfe to stand vpon quantities, beat it into perfect Past, and then you may print it with your moulds, and when it is drie, guild it, and so keepe them”. (Platt 1656)

•“½ tsp gum Tragacanth, ½ egg white, 1 tsp lemon juice, 2 tsp rosewater, 1 lb powdered sugar” (Brears 1999)

•What I used: ½ tbsp gum tragacanth, 1-2 tbsp hot water, 1 tsp rosewater, 2-3 tsp lemon juice, ½ egg white, 1 lb sugar ~4c

•Post period gumpaste, or Pastillage incorporates gelatin, modern sugarwork uses glucose, and/or gelatin instead of the eggwhite.  Pastillage is still used in high end cake decorating in things that are supposed to be rock hard

•Paste sticks to EVERYTHING, except generally, itself.  Will even stick to a silpat!  You must include plenty of extra powdered sugar for powdering your hands and surfaces, including rolling pins etc.  Clean tools frequently as the paste dries on them to a crusty mess very quickly.

•Depending on thickness and weather, paste can take a long time to dry beneath the surface.  And once the surface is dry, it is pretty much unworkable.  Trying to carve or model will break through the crust into the spongey under

•When (completely) dry, gumpaste has a unique quality: hard as a rock to the touch, but highly susceptible to changes in humidity.  EVEN WHEN DRY, do NOT put on a cake or anything else moist until the time of presentation or you will be sorry, especially molded/modeled items not over an armature.  I store pieces in paper bags to dry them and still keep the dust and etc off of them.

•The point of it being eatable should be kept in consideration, but realistically, its an art, not a food really. The traditional Rosewater, which is there to impart wetness and flavor without a chemical reason can be replaced with another wet flavor, or add other spices, etc. 

•Too stiff and the surface starts to crystallize and crack as you work it.  Too soft and it slumps horribly.  (And it will always slump).

•When you’ve made a batch, put the part you aren’t using into a baggie or closable plastic container.  It will refrigerate, and then need to be kneaded or even microwaved in plastic for a few seconds to warm it.

•Use powdered sugar like you would flour to powder every worksurface, including your hands.

•Clean the worksurface with a wet towel followed by dry towel. Also do this with your cutting tools and modelling tools as well. If you don’t, there will be small chunks of paste that dry on your tools, on the surface and your hands. These chunks will cause problems and get stuck in your work.

•Use a pile of cornstarch or powdered sugar as a pillow for your drying work not on an armature, it will help dry it out and to keep its shape.

•Once completely dry, you can still model additively, or smooth the inevitably lumpy/slumpy surface by brushing eggwhite and wet paste, or dryer paste, then “rubbing in” with powdered sugar.

•You can “glue” things on with a little wetter paste - made by adding eggwhite to a small portion of paste to make a glue.

•Gum paste is frankly TERRIBLE to work with.  It molds great!  But getting it out of the mold is not so great.  If piece is too thin, not oiled or starched enough, it will stick – and crack when you try to remove it.

•Modeling – for larger pieces - do one area at a time, cover with saran wrap.  Don’t go too thick, or it will slump off the armature before it dries.  Better to do layers.  DON’T try to re-wet drying paste unless you are going to re-knead it.  That way lies madness.

•You have maybe 20 minutes before it forms the “shell” that makes it unworkable.

•When fully dry (depending on humidity and thickness maybe a day maybe much longer) you can use a razor for carving, and sandpaper, but it can crack, so proceed with caution.

•I used a foam plate, dusted with powdered sugar, as a mold so I could peel it off the back of the dry sugar plate

•Rolled out the paste and pressed into the foam plate

•Smoothed with a brush and lots of powdered sugar to get a smooth painting surface

•I used a small feather mold for the edging pieces, affixing with egg white as glue

•Using cake colors mixed with egg white, like tempera (which it is!) I painted the portrait of Queen Helga below

1.  Platt, H., Delights for ladies: to adorne their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories. With beauties, banquets, perfumes, and waters. 1636: Young.

2.  Hopkins, K., Sweet Tooth: The Bittersweet History of Candy. 2012: St. Martin's Press.

3.  Walvin, J., Sugar: The World Corrupted, from Slavery to Obesity. 2017: Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

4.  Platt, H., A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen, Or, the Art of Preserving, Conserving, and Candying. 1656.

5.  Brears, P.C.D., All the King's Cooks: The Tudor Kitchens of King Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace. 1999: Souvenir.

6.  Dawson, T., The Good Huswifes Jewell: 2 Parts : London, 1596/. 1596: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum facsimile 1977.

7.  Fleming, E., Sugar Paste: a Cooks play dough, Dame Alys Katherine, O.L., O.P. Florilegium, 2005.

8.  Goldstein, D. and S. Mintz, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. 2015: Oxford University Press.

9.  Braudel, F., Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. II: The Wheels of Commerce. 1982: University of California Press.

10.  Day, I., The Art of Confectionery. Essay to accompany the exhibition catalog for The Pleasures of the Table and The Edible Monument" exhibition at the Getty Center in Los Angeles 2015.

11.  McGee, H., On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. 2007: Scribner.

12.  Reed, M., The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals. 2015: Getty Research Institute.

13.  Mintz, S.W., Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. 1986: Penguin Publishing Group.