Confectionery: Sugar Cookery, Chocolate, Icings, Creams, Fondant
Domain 6 tests sugar boiling stages with their temperatures and tests, chocolate tempering and its faults, and the composition of icings and creams. Expect a question giving a temperature and asking for the stage, or naming a fault and asking for the cause.
Sugar cookery stages
- Thread 110–112 °C, soft ball 112–116 °C, firm ball 118–120 °C, hard ball 121–130 °C.
- Soft crack 132–143 °C, hard crack 149–154 °C, caramel 160–170 °C. Stir only until the sugar dissolves; later agitation, sugar dust on the sides or a dirty brush starts crystallisation. Glucose, honey or a pinch of cream of tartar (forming invert sugar) prevents it.
Chocolate
Tempering ranges: dark 31–32 °C, milk 29–30 °C, white 28–29 °C. Fat bloom is grey streaking from poor tempering or warm storage; sugar bloom is a white powder from moisture. Store chocolate at 15–18 °C and 50–55 % RH, away from strong odours.
Icings, creams and fondant
- Royal icing: egg white and icing sugar, dries hard for piping.
- Buttercream: butter beaten with sugar syrup cooked to 118 °C.
- Ganache: chocolate and hot cream, about 2:1 for dark, 1:1 for milk.
- Fondant: syrup cooked to soft ball, cooled and worked to a smooth opaque paste.
- Pastry cream is starch-thickened and must boil briefly so the starch cooks out.
Worked example
Your thermometer reads 102 °C in boiling water instead of 100 °C, so it over-reads by 2 degrees. To pull syrup at true soft ball (113 °C), stop boiling when the thermometer shows 115 °C. Every target drops by the same offset. Then cool briefly, add glucose, and wash down the pan sides before boiling resumes.
Traps that cost marks
- Judging the stage by colour only, when temperature is the specification.
- Adding cold cream to very hot caramel, which spits; warm it first.
- Overheating chocolate until it seizes.
- Whisking a syrup that has already crystallised, spreading the crystals.