Sugar Artists

Abstract

Sugar artistry is a traditional and sophisticated profession, mainly performed by confectioners, bakers and cooks, where sugar is manually worked into various decorative objects. The artistic procedure consists of two main steps. First, a mixture of finely granulated sugar, water, glucose, tartaric acid and food coloring is homogenised by boiling. After the mass is cooled down to a temperature of about 53 °C on a casting mat, it is repeatedly rolled and twisted manually until a silky sheen starts to appear. This procedure requires a close and powerful manual contact to the hot material and leads to increased sweating and thermal erythema or blistering on the palms in about 10% of sugar artists. The sweat is a handicap for the artist when forming the sugar and causes the sugar to become salty, which could, in turn, lead to recrystallisation. Gloves or skin-protection creams can be helpful in the prevention of these problems.