If you have been enchanted by those beautiful windows of American pastry shops and want to make the two-tier cake of your dreams, or adorable cupcakes and so on, the first thing to do is learn how to make sugar paste.
I have been going around in circles about the issue for a long time, but when I got this recipe I wanted to try it… and I have to say it’s fun!
Among the many I chose this one because it doesn’t use complex ingredients (like liquid food glucose), but things that you can easily find in the store near your home. And the result is really excellent.
Ingredients:
- 450-500 gr of powdered sugar – buy it, don’t make it at home, it’s not the same thing
- 6 gr of gelatin
- 30 gr of water
- 70 gr of liquid honey (use acacia honey: it’s the only naturally liquid one)
- 16 gr of butter
- Gel food coloring.
First, put 450 g of icing sugar in the mixer bowl with the blades mounted and give a few pulses to dissolve any lumps.
Cut the gelatine into equal squares with scissors and soak it in 30 g of cold water for about 10 minutes (it must become soft).
Pour the gelatine + water into a small saucepan that you will place in a bain-marie and start mixing: the gelatine will dissolve completely. Be careful: the mixture must never boil!
At this point add the honey and continue mixing until it has also dissolved and finally add the butter: in contact with the hot mixture it will become liquid and you will obtain a homogeneous mixture.
At this point quickly pour the liquid mixture into the mixer from the appropriate channel and start the blades immediately at medium speed.
At a certain point you will see that the mixture is positioned all on one side, compact.
Stop the mixer and collect the dough and work it with more powdered sugar (without exaggerating) on the counter, trying to do it quickly and to obtain a soft and non-sticky dough: et voilà here is your sugar paste.
If you want colored paste, add a few drops of gel food coloring and work the paste until it has taken on the desired color. It is now ready to be rolled out with a rolling pin (better if you have a plastic one made specifically for this purpose, because wood is porous) and to create the decorations you like most.
Once you have obtained your block of sugar paste (the indicated doses are enough to cover a medium-sized cake) you can wrap it in cling film and store for a few months closed in a metal box. If it is hard to work, you can put it in a very low oven at 50°C for a minute.
