Gallery of Soltelties and Confectionery

Here is a gallery of some of the confectionery and soltelties that I have made over the years. Most of these were made from 2001 to 2013. I don't seem to find the time to do sugarcraft as often as I used to.

Marzipan and sugar plate

Sugar plate

Marzipan

Sugar plate for a Mongolian feast

Marzipan and sugar plate

Fruit fool in a sugar plate casing (for a Fool's Feast)

Sugar plate cat with marzipan fish inside

Marzipan fruits with embroidered sweete bag

A "silly bub" in syllabub

Sugar plate

Sugar plate

Sugar plate

Sugar plate

Sugar plate

Sugar plate skulls and marzipan bones

Hedgehogs

Marzipan fruits

A Yule log made of ''Figye" with a marzipan covering

Marzipan fruits (Pastry horn made by Mistress Leofwynn)

Christmas rose sugarplate

Golden apple (marzipan)

Painted gyngerbrede

A sugarplate dragon on his hoard of sweet delights

More marzipan fruits

A siren (pigeon and marzipan) on a 'sea' of jelly

A Marzipan Flower (11/18)

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

Flaming Yule Log Subtletie

Recently, my Barony hosted a Coronation and the feast had a Midwinter/Yule theme. As part of the entertainment for the evening, several subtleties were presented. One of the subtleties was a flaming yule log made of fig pudding and marzipan.


Subtleties are illusion foods that are designed to provide entertainment and interest at a feast. In period, they were often made to showcase the wealth and creativity of the host, and to do honour to important guests.





I adapted a recipe for Figey from the book Pleyn Delit. I did a test-run of the redacted original recipe, and it was delicious but didn't hold it's shape very well. For the final product, I added egg as a binder and extra almond meal to firm up the mix. I baked the mixture slowly in a log tin that was 3/4 full.

The mixing bowl full of spicy, fruity goodness

I forgot to take a picture of the log as it came out of the tin, but this should give an idea of how it looked. I used the leftovers to do a 'test' pudding to make sure the taste and texture was good. The yule log itself did not have flaked almonds on it though.

The pudding was shaped and a 'branch' added. The pudding was covered in marzipan which was painted with food colouring to look like a tree. I used a toothpick to put lines and whorls along the trunk and growth lines at the 'cut' end of the log. A depression was carved on the 'trunk' to hold an eggshell, and there was room for another eggshell in the 'vee' of the trunk and branch. Warmed brandy was poured into the shell and set alight to create the illusion of a flaming yule log. The subtletie was very well received by the guests.

The finished log before the eggshells were added

The high table at the feast

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.