Behold, the showpiece

Not everyone came out unscathed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Broken ass sugar.

 

But don't worry, it was all ok in the end.

 

 

 

It's hard to accurately describe the drama that accompanies sugar work. So you're working in an environment that is easily over 100 degrees -- every table has four heat lamps firing at full speed, a propane torch that is spewing fire, and two gas ranges that are lit.  In addition, our chef closed all of the doors and windows, then turned on the oven and opened the oven door. We use the various sources of fire to hold a tiny flower petal with a (latex-gloved) hand and then stick it to the showpiece. I only caught my glove on fire twice today.

I imagine that it's sort of like being in hell. If hell were made of sugar.

The extra drama comes when at least 40% of the showpieces break somehow during assembly. The room is silent with concentration until you hear a loud crack and then a storm of curse words. It's pretty awesome.

My sugar art looked a little bit Dr. Seuss like, but that's ok with me. I really can't make neon green vines look sexy and romantic, so I just go for cartoonish.  It looks like some sort of weird Tim Burton movie. You may notice the large crack in my wood-patterned base. Clearly, I let loose a few four-letter words myself.  I managed to Frankenstein it back together pretty successfully.

 

Here are a few close ups of my flowers:

Roses

Daisy. I realize the rose and daisy look almost identical. We had to make all white flowers for some reason. Lame.

 

And lest you think that sugar work is for the faint of heart, I leave you with a photo of one of my battle wounds from making those flowers:

So hot. Two my fingers look like this.  At least I have an excuse for all of my typos (today… not sure about those other times). Time to go stick them in a bucket of ice.