Dancing Figures Solteltie

This week I have spent a lot of time creating a solteltie for a Ball and feast. The base was created from gingerbread which was then covered with commercially produced fondant icing. The figures were roughly marked out as an imprint, based on an early Renaissance image of a betrothal. I tweaked the image to make it look like people dancing, and added a tassel hanging in front of the banner of my Barony as there was to be a tassel kicking competition at the event.

I had hoped to try out my new edible ink felt tip pen, but it just collected the icing. Back to the old fashioned way- food colouring and a small paintbrush. Most of the colours were gel food colourings mixed with a little bit of vodka. I thought that they covered very well.

Decorating the icing took a long time, but I thought that the result was worth the time. The silver 'balls' are soft sugar pearls. They look like cachous but do not have that horrible tooth-cracking feeling when you bite into them. The little daisies are made of fondant.

The 'naked' gingerbread

The iced gingerbread

Some figures have been marked out..

Nearly completed

The piece with the inspiration images beside it

The finished piece. I added caster sugar around the edges later, to cover the platter

Sugarplate Hellebore Subtletie

For our recent Midwinter Coronation, I was asked to make a subtletie with a hellbore (Christmas rose)  theme.

Hellebores image from  serenityinthegarden.blogspot.com

I decided to make the flowers and leaves out of sugarplate and the base and supplementary leaves out of marzipan.

I used a bowl to make a base of silver foil which I covered with tinted marzipan to create a 'knoll'.

The plate I used as a mould

The foil base for the knoll

I tinted some marzipan green and rolled it to lay over the foil base. I added extra marzipan leaves to cover the sides.

The marzipan knoll drying

I made the flowers and main leaves out of sugarplate. There are many period recipes available in books on the internet; I avoid ones which contain egg white because the sugarplate is not cooked. I use a mix of superfine sugar, lemon juice, gum dragon or gum tragacanth and rosewater. It tastes a lot like Easter egg candy.

I originally moulded my leaves and flowers by hand, but they were very irregular so I changed to a cutter.

Some leaves and flowers drying flat on a plate

I let some of the leaves and flowers dry in an egg carton to give them a more natural shape

I used green lustre dust to tint the inside of the flowers. In period, parsley juice was used as a green colouring agent, but it does not taste very nice, so I used a commercial colour.

Flowers drying on a bed of sugar

Next, I 'glued' yellow non-pareils one by one to the centre of the flowers. I used white icing as 'glue' and applied them individually with a toothpick.

I was really delighted with how they turned out. 

I left them to dry. A couple of days later, I noticed that the icing 'glue' had 'melted' the lustre dust and the yellow on the non-pareils. I was VERY disappointed.

The 'melted' flowers

Non-pareils drying - minus the lustre dust.

I had to do some cosmetic repairs with new non-pareils and lustre dust to make the flowers look better. Then I began the tricky process of putting the subtletie together.

The dry base ready for flowers

The first flowers are placed

The flowers and leaves are arranged and glued

The subtletie drying

The subtletie had to be covered and transported to the event site. I was worried about damage in transit because the site was up in hills and the subtletie had to survive very winding roads. It made it to the event safely, although a few non-pareils did fall off in transit and one flower cracked.

The completed subtletie ready to be presented to High Table.

Cornucopia Subtletie

Here is a cornucopia that I collaborated on as a presentation piece for the recent Midwinter Coronation. It was presented to High Table and was well received.

Another talented member of my Barony made the pastry shell of the cornucopia and pastry leaves. The cornucopia is ornamented with decorative pastry swirls.

I made marzipan fruits to spill out from the horn of plenty and supplemented them with gilded nuts.

gilded chestnuts

gilded walnuts

marzipan fruits dusted with sugar placed for presentation

More subtleties

Here are some more subtletie pictures. All were made from sugarplate and were painted with edible colours and metallic dusting powders.

Some completed subtleties

I will be quite busy over the next week or so, so I will go back to posting pictures of items that are already completed. Here are some photos of sugar plate and marzipan subtleties that I have made.....

A sugar plate cat that was filled with marzipan fish

Subtleties or 'soltelties' were illusion foods designed to astonish and amuse guests. They were very popular at feasts and were a demonstration of wealth and prestige as well as a way of honouring guests. There are many accounts of amazing illusion foods being presented at feasts in the sixteenth century. I prefer to focus on sweet subtleties with components like sugar plate, marzipan, toffee and gingerbread.

Sugar plate for the Mongol Feast

A sugar plate flower

Putti plate surrounded by sugar strawberries and bay leaves

This one suffered a bit of damage and got cracked

Marzipan strawberries

The mystical SpiderPig, made from marzipan and sugar plate

One of my first subtleties - A 'silly bub' in syllabub for a Fool's Feast

And for the same feast, a fruit fool in a jester's hat of marzipan