I love tradition, I love to work with my hands, I love the old time ways of doing things so when my children were invited last year to the home of a sweet and generous woman to learn the art of sugar eggs, I was over the moon.
Grandma had the connection and the kind woman, Nancy, was willing to show my children how to craft this almost lost art. I patiently waited for their return to hear all about how to craft this masterpiece, when the girls came home they gushed about the adorable scenes they had created, the fun they had and how they couldn't wait to bring the eggs home to put in our glass cabinet.
Grandma had the connection and the kind woman, Nancy, was willing to show my children how to craft this almost lost art. I patiently waited for their return to hear all about how to craft this masterpiece, when the girls came home they gushed about the adorable scenes they had created, the fun they had and how they couldn't wait to bring the eggs home to put in our glass cabinet.
A few days passed and the beautiful eggs were delivered by grandma herself after Nancy had allowed them first to dry. They were stunning! A peek inside yielded a tiny scene of magnificent proportions so as to inspire the ideals of a perfect candyland utopia. My girls had no desire to eat these eggs, had they done so they may surely have broken a tooth on the hard candy shell, instead the treasured eggs were carefully placed on a high shelf inside a glass cabinet where they could gleefully be enjoyed from afar.
So I peppered the girls with questions, how did they do this? What did I need to have to be able to do this art? I was itching to get my hands wet with the sticky goodness and let my creative juices flow to mold one of these masterpieces myself. But alas, I didn't have a mold and time was running out before Easter candy would be needed.
This year was different though, at the after Easter sales last year I picked up a plastic egg that opened lengthwise. It had contained some stickers and bubbles which I quickly cast aside in hopes of using the mold for these treasured panoramic beauties. Though a little larger than I would have liked, the mold worked beautifully when I tried it out. The girls went again this year for their egg-stravaganza crafting, with a brother in tow and mom got to work on youtube trying to learn the art as well.
After a little trial and error and referring back to Nancy's notes, which she graciously sent home with my children, I had a winner. I think that this is such a beautiful craft and lovely tradition that with her permission, I am sharing how you too can do this at home with your children.
Step #1:
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Make up the sugar and water mix. The recipe that was shared with me was 2 cups of sugar to 4 teaspoons of water.
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Step #2 & #3:
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After stirring the water sugar together completely you should be left with a slightly damp sandy feeling sugar. This is when you pack it into your mold. I mentioned above that I bought my mold at a drugstore, CVS I believe, it was filled with bubbles and was $2.99 meant to be used as a filled egg gift, but I wanted a mold. You'll notice that the egg splits horitzontally not vertically, this is what is so important. When I packed the mold I used a spoon back to really smoosh the sugar into the mold like I was making a sandcastle.
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Step #4:
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Once you have packed the bottom and top halves of the mold you flip them sandcastle style onto a pan or cookie sheet and remove the mold leaving the egg shaped sugar lump.
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Step #5:
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Here you need to really pay attention. You need to make sure that when you cut your opening you are doing it on the same side of the egg that will line up together when you match the egg halves up. Take a large knife and slice but then push the slice back up against the egg as this will help keep the inside of the egg moist enough to hollow out after step #6.
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Step #6:
Bake the eggs in the oven at 200 degrees for 5-7 minutes. Then resist the urge to touch them and just set them on the counter to cool for 30 minutes or so.
Step #7:
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After your eggs are cooled you simply remove the small cut part and then start scooping out sugar to create a hollow area in which to create your panoramic scene. This needs to be done with great care or you can accidentally crack your egg (speaking from experience). You don't want to scoop the shell too thin or it is more likely to break, try to keep about the width of a pencil eraser as your buffer.
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Step # 8:
You need to mix up some Royal Icing (4 cups powdered sugar, 3 T meringue powder, and 5 tablespoons warm water or 4.5 T warm water and .5 T almond extract for flavored decorations).
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The colored icing decorations you make will set up hard when left out overnight. This is what you can use for the inside of your egg, or for decorations on the outside. Waaaay cheaper than buying these at the store. Just remember to leave some of the icing white to use as glue to secure the top and bottom of the egg together. I used the grass tip and the star tip for my designs.
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Step #9:
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Use your white royal icing to pipe along the sides of the egg so you can secure the top and bottom of the egg together once you have made your design scene inside.
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Step #10:
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Decorate your seams so that your panoramic sugar egg looks flawless! And then let sit overnight so all the icing hardens well and can be packaged for gift giving or cabinet displaying!
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