Cakes Fillings And Frostings
Spun Sugar for Ice-Cream Strawberry Dessert
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ cup water
- ½ tsp cream of tartar
Method
- Before starting, set up your work area. Cover the work space completely with newspaper, including the nearby floor area. Arrange two long wooden spoons 20 inches apart, each under a heavy object, projecting from the edge of a counter or table.
- Bring the sugar, water and cream of tartar to a boil in a heavy saucepan. Place a candy thermometer in the saucepan. Continue cooking until the syrup reaches a temperature of 290 degrees (hard-crack stage) or when a little syrup separates into flexible threads when spooned into a bowl of ice water. Remove from the heat immediately.
- Hold 2 forks in one hand, next to each other. Dip them in the syrup. Let the excess syrup drip off. Then wave the forks with a brisk back-and-forth motion over the wooden spoons. The sugar will spin out into fine threads and come to rest over the spoons. Repeat the process until all the syrup is used.
- Form the spun sugar into desired shapes such as a halo effect. Scoop and shape it with your hands, but don't handle it any more than you have to because the strands are very fragile. Spun sugar is also good as individual nests for ice cream and molded desserts or to decorate floating island.
Original card
The recipe above was transcribed from this scan of Vera’s original card.