Chef K whats your ratio? Isomalt to water? I am using 3 to 1 Isomalt to water last time I boiled some.

That's really high, you shouldn't be having any trouble at all.
At 33% of you isomalt weight the amount of water your using is extreme. But hey if it works cool. Wow, I use 10% of isomalt weight in water for pulling and 5% for blowing. Traditionally you don't actually add any water to isomalt you just heat it until it's liquid and clear than use it no specific temperature just until it's liquid, but usually that's around 180*C.

I made some isomalt with the water content up to 20% of isomalt weight and it totally sagged and fell apart especially the next day there was nothing left.
You must be magic!

I can't think of why it would be harder to work with if it should be putty. Hmmmm I'll have to experiment. Wait, are you adding your water at the begining or the end of your melting of the isomalt?

www.kincaellan.com

Traditionally I have been adding at the start and stirring until it dissolves. I was aware that you could dry cook as I call it but have never tried that will have to look into that and try it one day. I have not had any trouble with sagging or falling apart pieces. Being in the Southern US the humidity can be a real killer at times. I know at least one professional chef that uses this ratio and he is in Texas, matter fact thats where I got the formula.
I am currently trying to perfect a granulated sugar recipe for these high humidity climates but thus far its been with little results.

The fact that you are adding it at the begining makes a difference. By the time it's cooked out the water has evaporated a lot. You can melt the isomalt without water in it than add it at the end when it has settled abit. That way you won't lose as much.

www.kincaellan.com

Had not thought about that good tip Chef I will remember that one.

Okay...so here's the final cake! It was REALLY humid here last night and I had made the bubbles yesterday. There was WAY more breakage than I anticipated, so I had fill in with some buttercream. I think it ended up being a really cute cake for a Bubble themed 2nd birthday!

Many thanks to all of you, and especially to Chef Jeff for all of your help with the process for making the bubbles!



If you can't see the image, you can check out the cake in my photos as well.

Chef Kincaellan,

A week ago, I just took a group of sugar classes in Orlando at the FL ICES mini classes.

We blew bubbles from both Isomalt and sugar. The isomalt was heated dry in the microwave until it essentially boiled.

I found that it was very "tempermental"??? It didn't tolerate much pulling and it broke quickly iof pushed beyond a certain, minimal limit. It was colored using airbrush liquid after it was liquified, but before it was poured to cool.

I'd attributed this problem to the very dry air in the air conditioned room, but now I wonder if it was because it had no water added to it at all????

The microwaving was really appealing. A pound was ready to pour on the silpat in less than 10 mins.

Could you address this issue and tell me if there might be some way to modify the microwave method to avoid this problem???

You can see several pics in my photos.

Thanks very much,
Rae

Rae,


The technique is interesting, and fast. If you weigh your isomalt before melting it in the microwave and than microwave it to liquid, add 5-10% water after letting it stand a minute or two.

Be careful and add it slowly as it will spit and sputter. DO NOT add it all at once as the water can go in and under the sugar, heat instantly into steam and explode the hot isomalt all over.

The colouring process is fine, but I would add the colouring to the water youre going to add and strain it well.

I usually prepare large amounts of sugar or isomalt and than let it harden 5kg or more at a time. I break up the slab and keep it in zip-lock bags in an airtight container with silica gel. When I need it I just pop it in the microwave and its already balanced with the water etc. Be aware though the more you microwave the isomalt and sugar the harder it will get to use. You are cooking out the moisture every time it gets liquid at all. After a few trips thru the microwave you may need to re-hydrate it. Weigh the isomalt, melt it, and add 5-10% of water to it again. Youll notice a big difference. You can go as high as 20% but after that it starts to affect the stability of the finished piece.

Nice pictures in the photo album.
How long was the course?

www.kincaellan.com

Jeff's method is how we did it at school. We only had less than 3 days to learn what we learned. So the first day we did the sugar, colored it and let it cool an then we wrapped them in seran wrap and put them in containers.

We "nuked" what we needed as we needed it, that's what we used the 1/2 silpats for, for the microwave.

But we did cook the isomal first and we did color it with the gels ( I think it was the airbrush gels )

I do have pictures of the whole process but because they do have "faces" on them I can't post them and there is no "category" in the galleries for pics like that.

a quick way to keep using your skills is to cast shapes.

you do your sugar or isomal, oil cookie cutters or your dimentional silicone molds and pour the sugar into them.

Or you can place the large cookie cutters on oiled foil that you crinkle and place the cookie cutter ontop and you can get interesting shapes with intersting effects that you can use as bases or stand up pieces on your cakes.

Jeff,

Thanks so much for the quick reply and the literal "solution" to my problem.

I have a small cast and blown piece (that will be saved by the recipient after it's removed from the cake) to do in a few weeks, so I'll try it and let everyone know how it turns out.

The classes in FL ran about 9 hrs. total--3hrs. rose & plain bow (all sugar), 3hrs. pulled striped ribbon, calla lily, blown balls (half using sugar, half Isomalt), 3hrs. cast, blown, molded, pulled bubble sugar mini showpiece (mainly Isomalt).

About a year ago, I'd taken 30 hrs. of classes at Wilton in Chicago, so it was mostly a refresher, except for the mini marine showpiece--I'd never done casting, molding, or figure blowing before. We'd only boiled the Isomalt at Wilton and I remembered how much better the product had worked, so your comments about having a certain %age of water rang a bell. I'm going to pass your info onto the instructor, too.

Again, thanks very much.
Rae

Rae,

glad I could help! It's exactly this sort of reason that i'm writting my book and pricing it low. It's nice to have something to refer back to on hand but when the other books are $140.00 and up it's not making the art very available. There is even one book out there that is as compact as mine will be but is over $140 dollars! Maybe I should charge more for the book...hmmm...nah that would defeat the whole reason for writting it.

On that note...back to it. Time for a chapter on a sugar dragon.

www.kincaellan.com