Pastillage Showpiece and French Curves

Pastillage is a sugar-based dough used for decorating and creating decorations for pastry, showpiece work and decorative molded forms. The molds are in a familiar or common shape, such as a swan and within the showpiece are many different curves. These curves were designed by the French and used to draw smooth curves of almost any desired curvature, originally used in mathematics. Week four, we hand made our molds out of cardboard, made the pastillage mixture of sugar, gelatin, corn starch and water, then rolled out each form, using the French curve concept. Next week we will assemble our first showpiece.

Week Five! We were given the rare opportunity to continue to add to our pieces for the showpiece. I made another batch of pastillage. With this new batch I made 6 more wings for my swan a total of 12 wings (extra for breakage). I also made cattails and a dragonfly. We use fine sandpaper to sand off the edges from last week’s batch of pastillage pieces. We will assemble our showpiece next week. look for photos this weekend of my first cake.

Here is the swan before it was assembled