Looking for interesting ideas for creative projects on the eve of the holidays? We have already said that decorative flowers can be made from the most unexpected materials:, etc. It turns out that beautiful buds can be easily modeled from ordinary caramel sweets. In its finished form, the original bouquet, the production of which does not take much time, will look like a glass decoration and will certainly make an impression, because you can not only admire it, but also taste it.

For the project, prepare:

• bamboo skewers (one for each rose);
• kitchen scissors;
• glass bowl for microwave:
• hard caramel candies without filling;
• rubber gloves for working with food.

Step 1.
Using scissors, carefully cut off the top pointed ends of the bamboo skewers you will be using.

Step 2.
Pour a glass of water into a small glass bowl and place a handful of caramel candies in it (right with the candy wrappers). Since sweets will be a material for sculpting roses, it is better to take candies of a suitable color: red, white or pink are suitable for making petals, and green for leaves. Sort the candies by color and first tackle the ones you will use to form the petals.
Now place the dishes in the microwave and preheat for 30 seconds to 1 minute. The time depends on the power of your appliance. In order to achieve the desired effect, be guided by the temperature of the water: it should be warm enough, but not so hot that it burns your fingers.

Step 3.
Put on food grade rubber gloves and remove one candy from hot water. Without removing the wrapper, place the lollipop between your fingers and flatten to form an oval.

Step 4.
Unfold the candy and adjust the petal, giving it a neat shape with even edges.

Step 5.
Wrap the resulting petal around the skewer to form the center of the bud. Try to work fairly quickly as the candy hardens over time. If necessary, return the caramels to the bowl of warm water and microwave again.

Step 6.
Repeating the steps above, make some more petals and add them to the composition.

In order for the lollipops to beautifully frame the skewer, the subsequent blanks need to be bent more than the previous ones so that they form a voluminous bud.

For convenience, use a milk bottle or tall glass to hold the rose in while you shape the extra petals.

Step 7.
Place a new batch of water in the microwave, adding two green caramel candies to it this time. Heat the candies as described in step 2. Then flatten the wrapped candies between your fingers into a flat oval.

Step 8.
Unfold one of the candies and continue modeling, making it look like a leaf with a pointed end and slightly rounded edges. When you get the shape you want, clip the lollipop to the skewer under the petals.

Step 9.
Leave the other candy in an oval shape. Unfolding the caramel, squeeze it a little, and then pass it through a skewer, strengthening it approximately in the middle of the base. Raise the edges of the candy slightly to create a slight waviness.

Step 10.
The rose is ready. You can limit yourself to one flower or, repeating all the steps, make a few more buds to get a beautiful and unusual bouquet.

I would like to invite you to admire the sugar flowers. Sugar flowers are delicate or bright, with drops of morning caramel dew on the leaves, they look like they are alive and will never wither.

Sugar flowers are sweet colored figures that are a wonderful decoration, they are based on: powdered sugar, molasses, cornstarch, food flavors and colors.

These flowers will decorate any table and make confectionery attractive and appetizing, creating a festive atmosphere and will be able to make a pleasant impression on the guests!

You can make them yourself: sweet roses, daisies, pansies, poppies and even orchids.

In the manufacture of sugar flowers, mastic is used, since it is easy to make and pliable in the hands, caramel flowers are expensive, since a lot of manual labor is used in their manufacture, but they are magnificent.

Confectionery has no boundaries and you can make an exact copy of fresh flowers.

But master pastry chefs often create unearthly flowers of amazing variety of shapes and shades, their beauty.

Description:

Place a piece of food coloring sugar fudge on a board or parchment sprinkled with sugar. Roll out very thinly, turning frequently so that the fudge is well coated with sugar.

Take a flat circle in the middle, fold the edges slightly to create a petal effect, and squeeze in the middle to make it look like a flower. To make a flower in full bloom, bend the petals from the center to the sides. In the middle, you can stick a piece of fondant of a different color using a wooden stick or a toothpick.

Using a toothpick, these flowers can be attached to the cake.

Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup water

3-5 drops of vinegar essence 3% or 10-12 drops of citric acid solution, aromatic essence,

food paint.

Prepare sugar syrup according to the same recipe as for fondant (recipe below), but boil it until tested for caramel.

To prevent the caramel from becoming sugared, add vinegar essence to the syrup at the beginning of cooking (the syrup should have a sour taste). You can add citric acid or tartaric acid, but this turns the caramel yellow.

It is easy to make caramel leaves from caramel. To do this, a die is cut out of potatoes, carrots or turnips like a sheet with veins.

The stamp is fixed on a table fork and its lower part with a pattern is dipped in hot caramel; then the die with the stuck caramel is placed on a lightly oiled cold plate, the caramel sticks a little to the plate, and the die is easily separated from the caramel.

The caramel leaf is separated from the plate with a knife and, while it has not cooled down, give it any shape by stretching or bending it on a rolling pin.

Curls can be made from slightly cooled plastic caramel. To do this, you need to roll the caramel in the form of a flagellum and spirally wind it on a greased stick.

You can color the caramel with any food color and aromatic essence to give it the appropriate taste and smell.

Main lipstick

Pour sugar into a saucepan, cover with hot water and stir until completely dissolved. Wash off sugar adhered to the inner edges of the pan with a wet brush or gauze, put on high heat and cook without stirring. As soon as the syrup begins to boil, remove the foam formed on the surface with a spoon, rinse the splashes of sugar syrup from the edges of the pan again, cover it tightly with a lid and cook the syrup until sampled on a soft ball.

Before the end of cooking, add a citric acid solution to the syrup at the rate of 5 drops of solution for every 100 g of sugar taken or 1/2 teaspoon of 3% vinegar.

When more acid is added to the syrup, the lipstick does not whip well and does not harden on products, and lipstick with a small amount of acid crystallizes quickly and gives a glaze without shine.

Instead of acid, you can use caramel syrup at the rate of 1 teaspoon of molasses for every 100 g of sugar.

After cooking, sprinkle the surface of the syrup with water and cool it as quickly as possible. To do this, place a saucepan of syrup in cold water or on ice. You can also put pieces of clean food ice on the surface of the syrup, and then drain the resulting liquid.

Beat the cooled syrup with a wooden spatula for 10-20 minutes, until it turns white and curdles into a white fine-crystalline mass, which is called lipstick. Knead the lipstick with a spatula, heat to 45-55 °, stirring all the time, and add aromatic substances.

If the lipstick turns out to be too thick, dilute it with a little water, if it is liquid, add sifted powdered sugar.

The lipstick, ready for glazing, is reminiscent of medium-thick sour cream in consistency. If grains formed from sugar crystals appear in the sugar syrup when cooled, then such a syrup does not need to be whipped, since the glazed products will turn out to be not smooth, but lumpy, ugly. In such a syrup, you need to add water 2 times more than the norm and cook again.

Lipstick can withstand long-term storage, so it can be prepared for future use. If it is stored in a jar or saucepan, put parchment soaked in water or a wet piece of gauze on the lipstick, while there should be no lipstick on the inner edges of the dishes. As needed, take out the required amount of lipstick, knead it, heat it up with stirring with a spatula to 45-55 °, flavor it and use it for glazing products. Lipstick can also be used with tea and coffee.

In the recipes below, the dosage of added flavors and flavors is calculated for a serving of base lipstick made from 10 tbsp. tablespoons of sugar. For this purpose, the syrup must be boiled a little tighter than before being sampled on a soft ball.

Caramel is a sugar syrup heated over high heat. The accuracy of the caramel preparation is very important, the difference between a subtle and sweetish taste and a burnt one for a few seconds. It is advisable to start cooking caramel over high heat and after a minute reduce to low heat, stirring occasionally. It is important to prepare all auxiliary tools in advance. Since the caramel cools quickly, you need to have time to turn it into the desired forms. If the caramel has time to harden, you can gently warm it up and it will return to the desired state.
Very important: Since caramel can reach a temperature of about 160C, you need to work in such a way that it does not cause burns to yourself or others.

Caramel. Basic recipe.

Ingredients:

½ tbsp. (100 g) sugar
2 tbsp. l. water (the amount of water should slightly cover the sugar)

It is advisable to use a saucepan with a thick bottom, which provides uniform and gentle heating. As mentioned above, start heating for a minute over high heat, then reduce to less than average. Until boiling, you need to stir the sugar completely. After that, there is no need to interfere. It will take 7-10 minutes for a golden mass to begin to form around the edges of the pan, which gradually fills the entire pan. You can shake the pan from side to side to improve the process. When the golden mass covers the entire pan and all the sugar dissolves, then the caramel is ready. We are waiting for all the bubbles to disperse (shake the pan) and the caramel becomes transparent.

Remove the pan from the heat and lower (carefully) into a large pan filled with cold water to stop the caramel heating process. Sometimes it is advised to take a brush to dip in cold water and run from the inside along the edges of the pan during cooking (do it very carefully). We prepare decorations, thought out in advance, so that the caramel does not have time to harden.
The taste depends on the color of the caramel. When it is light, the taste is simply sweet, the darker the caramel, the more interesting and delicate the taste.

Problems that may arise during the cooking process:

If sugar begins to crystallize and it gradually turns into a solid mass, you will have to redo it first or heat it up easier (the main thing is not to burn it).

To peel off the hardened mass from the pan, you will have to pour boiling water over it all and scrape it with a rubber whisk or something else without damaging the coating of the pan.

Strawberries in caramel

Lubricate the surface with oil, where the strawberries in caramel will be laid out. We string strawberries on a wooden toothpick or skewer. Gently dip into caramel and spread on the prepared surface.

Caramel basket

Turn the silicone mold upside down. If there is no suitable one, you can use a similarly shaped plate covered with aluminum (foil) or just an iron plate of the desired shape and oiled (some people use the ladle upside down). Spoon the caramel and first make a thick strip of caramel at the base of the mold or plate. Then we make longitudinal and then transverse stripes, trying to reach the picture - the prison bars. We are waiting for the caramel to cool slightly, but remove it while still warm. Carefully remove the foil or silicone from the basket.

The amount of caramel obtained from the basic recipe should be enough for 8 molds.

Candy ball

This will require a device in the form of two skewers (skewers) at a distance of 20 cm, from each other, fixed motionlessly. Take a fork and sprinkle caramel over the skewers. We collect the resulting threads from the skewers into one ball.

Caramel tube

You will need a small glass jar.

Candy spiral

Lubricate the mush with oil. Rotating the musat, pour with caramel. Let it cool and remove it from the musat.

Figures on parchment paper

Naturally, we rub the parchment paper with oil and write out the pretzels or shapes as we wish.

Water is poured into the dishes intended for cooking caramel in an amount of 33-35% by weight of sugar, heat it to a boil, then add sugar and stir thoroughly. The resulting solution is brought to a boil, molasses is added, again heated to a boil, filtered through a sieve and boiled down to a caramel sample. To take a sample, take a few drops of caramel, combine them into a lump and cool. If the chilled, hardened caramel does not bend, crushes easily and does not stick to the teeth, then it is ready. The finished caramel mass is poured onto marble, oiled with vegetable oil. Dry citric acid and essence are added to the cooled floor mass, painted over with food paint and stirred well.
For 1 kg of sugar - 500-550 g of molasses.

The boiled caramel is painted over with food paint, then pulled by hand, and then pressed against a plywood board. First, they pull out the core with their fingers, allow it to cool, after which first three small petals are glued to it, then four, etc. until you get a lush, beautiful rose. The caramel is drawn in the same way for other colors. It is good at this moment to have before you samples of flowers from a different mass.

Caramel flowers are attached to a thin elastic wire and decorate with them a caramel pyramid.
Caramel leaves are prepared from non-stretched caramel, colored green with food paint; a small caramel piece is made of various colors using a paper envelope.

From a viscous thick caramel mass, having a temperature of about 70 °, you can prepare decorations for cakes in the form of fountains, domes, coasters, cobwebs, etc. or thoroughly refined granulated sugar. For this you need to take a light caramel molasses; the more molasses are used, the more plastic the caramel mass is. If the molasses is replaced with other anticrystallizers (invert syrup, various acids) or the dose of molasses is reduced, the caramel mass quickly solidifies after cooling below 70 °, which makes molding difficult. When making caramel mass, it should be borne in mind that the less molasses is added, the more water must be added.

Caramel syrup is prepared in the same way as fondant, only the caramel mass intended for decoration is cooked in small portions in a small bowl over high heat, since when boiling over low heat, the caramel mass turns out to be yellow. To cook the caramel mass, take sugar, dissolve it in hot water, after which the edges of the dishes are washed with water. After that, the syrup is boiled. As soon as foam appears on its surface, it is carefully removed. After boiling the syrup, wash the edges of the pan again, cover the dishes with a lid and boil the syrup to 118 °, add molasses heated to 50 ° and, reducing the heat slightly, boil the mass to a caramel sample of 158-163 °. So that the color of the caramel mass does not change, it is cooled immediately after cooking. Dishes with caramel syrup are immersed in cold water for a few seconds, or the caramel syrup is poured onto a cold marble or baking sheet, lightly greased. The fat should be free of moisture, odor and impurities. The caramel spreading over the marble is folded up with a wide knife, also greased. The caramel mass is tinted with dissolved food paints. At high heat, the paints decompose and curdle, so they are placed after the caramel mass has cooled to 100 °. The consistency of the paints should be creamy; dry paints dissolve poorly and form small dots in caramel. When coloring the caramel mass in several colors, it is poured in portions onto a table with a marble lid or into small pans and tinted separately.

If you need to heat the caramel mass, then put it in a frying pan and put it in an oven, oven or heating devices. Aromatize and acidify the caramel mass with various acids and essences after cooling it to 80-90 °, since at a higher temperature, some types of acids are destroyed, and aromatic substances evaporate. It is best to make a paste and knead it into a caramel mass. For 1 kg of caramel mass, take 8 g of crushed tartaric acid, 3 g of fruit essence and 2 g of diluted paint. Products made from caramel mass have the ability to quickly absorb moisture from the air, which makes their surface wet, sticky, loses its shine, becomes covered with a sugared dirty crust, under which further destruction of products continues. To prevent caramel products from being destroyed, you need to adhere to the following rules: a) add molasses and acid to the caramel mass in doses not exceeding the norm; b) make products from caramel mass in a warm dry room; c) do not take caramel products from a hot room to a cold one and vice versa; d) mold caramel products with your hands, having previously washed them with alum, so that your hands are not moistened; e) dip the caramel products in the circulation syrup; f) hold the finished caramel products under steam for 1 second, sprinkle with white or colored sugar and then dry.

A fountain made of caramel mass is made to decorate cakes. On a table with a marble lid, draw six figures in the form of knots of the same size, which are lightly covered with melted fat. Roll four cornetics of the same size from wrapping paper, put them tightly into one another and glue them with eggs, cut off the thin end of the cornet so that a hole 5 mm in diameter is formed. This cornet is made in order to maintain the temperature of the caramel mass and not burn your hands when working with it. After that, roll the parchment paper cornet, which is inserted into the wrapping paper lornetics, so that the thin end of the parchment cornet protrudes outward. Then cut the thin end of the parchment cornet to form a hole no more than 1 mm in diameter. Pour the caramel mass into the cornet to half its volume, close the parchment cornet first, and then the rest. From the prepared cornet, squeeze the caramel with a thin thread along the contour of the previously drawn images. Then, while the knot is still flexible, carefully remove and move to another place to cool. After that, pour the caramel mass onto a table with a marble lid, giving it the shape of a round small cake, into which you insert the prepared cooled caramel knots. Glue the ends of the knots on top with hot caramel mass. The dome is made for decorating cakes and other custom products. Apply a thin layer of fat to a metal dish or dome-shaped dish. After cooling the fat from the cornet, release the caramel mass onto the mold according to the drawings previously outlined on it. Circle the base of the mold with a thicker layer of caramel mass. When the caramel mass has cooled slightly, carefully separate the caramel dome from the mold. To do this, lift it slightly with your fingers and turn it, but do not remove it from the mold until it cools completely. After completely cooling down, glue caramel-glazed nuts, fruits or flowers from caramel, marzipan onto the caramel dome and carefully remove the product from the mold. The dome can be made from different colors of caramel.

Plates and coasters are made from caramel mass boiled down to 163 °, which is cooled and quickly rolled into a cake on a warmed board. Place the cakes in greased forms of various sizes and styles (narrow, flat, in the form of plates). The leaves are made from showering caramel, tinted green. Cut small veins on the half of the potato, resembling the veins of a leaf, then dip the potatoes in the hot caramel mass and put on the table with a greased marble lid. The caramel leaf, freed from potatoes, can be bent and shaped in a warm state. Caramel cobwebs are prepared using a wire broom, the ends of which are dipped in hot caramel mass, and thin caramel threads formed at the ends of the wires are applied to specially placed thin metal rods or wooden sticks. A trifle of caramel should be done with a cornet. On greased marble or on a confectionery iron sheet, plant all kinds of figures that can be used to decorate cakes, pastries and other products.

Caramel is a delicacy known since childhood. A rare child, having eaten a cockerel on a stick, did not try to melt sugar and make candy on his own, and many succeeded. It would seem that caramel jewelry - what could be simpler? Indeed, boiling caramel is quite simple, but working with it itself requires additional tools, talent and patience.

If you are ready to repeat the feat of the masters and make your own caramel jewelry, for example, caramel flowers, leaves or more complex compositions, then you will need utensils for cooking with thick walls, a thermometer up to 200 degrees, liquid dyes, an alcohol lamp for bonding elements and a caramel lamp. which keeps the caramel elastic. If high art gives way to fantasy, your creativity and excellent taste, then take a look at the rather simple, but, nevertheless, original ways of decorating desserts offered by "Culinary Eden".

Before you start making caramel jewelry, you need to properly prepare the caramel itself. There are two cooking methods.

The first way

Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
3-5 drops of vinegar essence 3%,
food paint.

Preparation:
Pour ¾ glass of water into a bowl for boiling caramel and bring it to a boil. Pour sugar into boiling water, stir thoroughly and add vinegar essence. Bring the resulting solution to a boil and cook until a caramel sample is taken. The caramel test is carried out using a few cooled drops of caramel; they should not bend and stick to the teeth, but at the same time crush well. The finished caramel is poured into a chilled dish greased with vegetable oil. When the caramel has cooled down a little, add the color to it.

Second way

Ingredients:
35 ml of water,
100 grams of sugar
50 gr molasses
3-5 drops of vinegar essence
or 10-12 drops of dissolved citric acid

Preparation:
Pour water into a bowl for boiling caramel and bring it to a boil. Add sugar, stir and bring to a boil again. Add molasses to the resulting solution and bring to a boil. Strain the resulting mass through a sieve and boil until a caramel sample. Add citric acid or vinegar essence, dye of the desired color and flavor to the slightly cooled mass, mix well.

So that the caramel mass does not have time to solidify before you form the intended pattern, you need to cook it in small portions in a small bowl. The finished caramel mass is stretched and bent, giving the desired shape using a wide knife, oiled.

One of the easiest ways to decorate cakes is with chopped caramel. As a base, it is better to use a white cream - protein, whipped cream or yogurt. White cream will better show the royal natural color of caramel, and if you decide to make it multi-colored, then the colors will look brighter on a white background.

To get this decoration, make caramel, oil a skillet or a large sheet of parchment paper, and spread the caramel over its surface so that a layer is about 3 mm thick. Leave the caramel to harden. When it hardens, separate it from the paper or frying pan and carefully break off small pieces from it, with which, like a mosaic, decorate your cake.

Caramel is also useful for lovers of fruit and berry cakes. It will make the berries sweeter, giving them a sweet and sour taste. Prepare fruits and berries: peel the kiwi and cut into thin slices, divide the tangerines into slices and peel off membranes, cut the strawberries into quarters.

Make caramel and garnish the cake with kiwi slices, tangerine wedges, strawberries and cherries. Grease and roll parchment paper into a bag. Pour caramel into a bag and cut off a small corner. The smaller the cut, the thinner the pattern will be. Squeeze caramel onto fruit and draw the most intricate patterns for it, because the more delicate and thinner, the more beautiful it will turn out!

If the decoration is already ready, and the caramel has remained and has not yet had time to dry, then you can make spirals and decorate cakes with them or use them as an independent dessert. To do this, you need a slightly cooled, plastic caramel, butter and a rolling pin or several thinner sticks according to the number of necessary spirals.

Grease the sticks and roll the caramel into strands. Wrap the resulting strands on sticks or a rolling pin and leave until the caramel hardens. When the caramel has hardened, carefully remove the spirals and decorate your dessert with them.

Does the soul require something abstract? You're welcome. Each time it is different, incomparable, made only by you, the one and only abstract caramel pattern. For such creativity, parchment paper, a rolling pin, a fork, a wide knife and any other means at hand will come in handy.

Lubricate parchment paper and a rolling pin with oil. Scoop the slightly cooled caramel with a knife or fork, if you want a more complex and delicate pattern, and pull it onto paper. Do not forget to spin the caramel, change the direction and plane of movement. Scoop up the caramel with a knife and transfer it to a rolling pin. Until the caramel is frozen, stretch, bend and shape it.

Surprise guests with amber scattering on your culinary artwork. During the preparation of caramel, add citric acid instead of vinegar essence, from this the caramel will turn yellow. Don't wait for it to cool down, but rather equip yourself with a silicone baking brush right away and start creating.

Place parchment paper around the cake. Dip the brush in hot caramel and quickly transfer it to the protein or whipped cream cake. Start sprinkling the caramel. You will get volumetric splashes of different shapes and sizes, which, after hardening, will resemble scattered amber.

Do you want something completely original? Make a caramel dome for your cakes. Of course, the materials, as well as the effort, will take quite a lot, but isn't the result worth it? Stock up on grapefruits, there should be exactly half of them than cakes, parchment paper, butter and, of course, caramel.

Cut the grapefruit in half and brush the rind with oil. Also grease parchment paper and roll into a bag. Fill it with caramel and cut a small corner. Squeeze the caramel into the grapefruit halves until a fine mesh is formed. When the caramel has hardened, remove the mesh from the grapefruit; this should be done as carefully as possible, because the structure is rather fragile. Cover your cakes with the resulting domes and the original dessert is ready!

As you can see, to work with caramel, you can do without alcohol lamps, thermometers and special lamps, and make jewelry no less original and tasty than that of professionals. The main thing is your creative mood, desire to create, experiment and surprise. Caramel is just a material that, in your hands, turns into exceptional, different from others, each time different, amazing masterpieces.

It is important to enjoy the process of decorating with caramel itself, and if you succeed, then experiment, create, master new materials, come up with something new and amaze others!