The last couple of weeks in class we’ve been making showpieces. The first week was a chocolate showpiece with a theme of books/films/animals. I decided to combine the three and go for Harry Potter and the Phoenix!

Surprisingly all my chocolate tempered nicely the entire week. I think this was because I was tempering much larger quantities than I was used to, so although it was much more tiring, it changed temperature at a much slower rate. I didn’t overheat it and it was wonderfully tempered! My showpiece probably took at least 20lbs of chocolate, a combination of milk, dark and white (we had to use at least two of the three). The two books on the bottom are solid pieces to provide a sturdy base, there is a support piece up behind the phoenix. Originally I wanted him up in the air, however he was 2lbs of chocolate before I put all the feathers on so he was too heavy to stay up. So I rested him on the books and had the tail out over the books. I was also going to have the sorting hat and Gryffindor sword as well as the glasses but decided it would be too crowded. Realised afterwards that I could have attached the sword handle onto the support so it came up from behind the phoenix, but never mind. I lost marks for untidiness and it having several smudges and chips from handling. Carrying him down to the demo kitchen to go in the display window was a feat! He was very heavy and the heat of my hands was melting him!

This week we did the sugar showpiece. Originally this use to be a two week task with a much harder piece to produce. However since they started doing finals on the last week to recap over the past 9 months it got cut down to a week. This meant we got no real practice, most of what we made ended up on the piece (whereas before they had a week to practice and play about and then a week to complete the piece). We also had no theme, just a list of techniques to use. We had to have an 8″ poured sugar base and a support piece, straw sugar (the large pink piece, look at a cross section and it looks like a bunch of straws) and a full rose with leaves. We then got to chose from either blown, net (the red and orange pieces in the background), rock or a different full flower. And for extra credit we could do either blown or another full flower (if we hadn’t already done them).

I quite enjoyed it, working with the sugar itself was fun, though we didn’t really have the best conditions for it. Really you need cold and dry for it to work best. We actually used isomalt for most of it, it doesn’t caramelise or crystallise. And though it does get sticky from moisture in the air, unlike sugar it will dry out again (though it will have lost its shine). I’m not a fan of abstract so visually it doesn’t really appeal to me, but I did good on it!

And I have school off this evening, I did my exam last night. DmentD and I are getting married this evening, which will be coming in a post soon, I just wanted to get this one out the way first so they didn’t have to share a post! And on that note, I better go get ready! *grins*