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Molding fruits and animals in sugar

Sugar is fatty when runny and brittle & breakable
when dry, and with it, one casts well round things & large
muscles, but awkwardly things fine & delicate. However, try well
clarified sugar. One needs to soak for one night
or one day the plaster mold before
casting the sugar, in order that is very full of water
& does not drink the syrup. One needs also for it to be of
easy release, for the sugar is sour & brittle. Finally, do
not consider casting anything in sugar that does not release well
and that cannot be neatly molded in two halves, to open it when you will
need to. If you want to mold a bunch of grapes, one needs to
take it, like any other fruit, in its true vigor, for if it is withered,
it will ne come out that way. Take heed, therefore,
to make your molds in the natural season of
que all things. The grapes, that are
usually wanted cast in sugar, can be made artificially or with
wax or earth, or even with some grapes attached
with some melted wax on some slab & other full
thing, so that they are very close together and when released & only
make up one half. Or, if you have some of those grapes called
chauches or sauvignons, which have the grapes
very close together, encase half of them on in the slab
of clay and cast on the other half. And if some of the
grapes are not released, pluck them out. Note that neither in
sugar, nor in metal, can a bunch which has light &
separated grapes be cast properly, because the end of the bunch
is so delicate, especially if you keep the bunch, that it could not
withstand the large grapes. Thusly, you will need to cast
hollow, which you could not do if the bunch does not have close
grapes & molds without having them
scattered & spread apart.



To cast pears & apples in sugar, one ought
not make any gates, but rather, fill one half of the mold and
then join the two, and keep turning it until the sugar has set
and is cold. One ought to mix nothing in the mold apart from
plaster, reheated as you know.

+

One needs for the mold to have soaked one day
and one night in cold waterfor, and
to be humid, when you cast in sugar.



The sign that the syrup or the sugar melted in water is
cooked enough to cast fruits, is when it makes threads when shook. And
if it passes that point, it is not good, for it will always be humid. If
the sugar attaches to it, one needs to throw some
wheat starch in the mold, or to rub it with an
almond.

