I took my first stab at making sugar gems yesterday. I bought the molds, funnel with stopper, and followed the step-by-step instructions (Vy Whittington's book).

However the sugar flowed too quickly even when I was very careful to lift the stopper slowly, so the sugar overflowed and none of the gems came out with nicely defined edges.

I also tried the toothpick method for the really tiny ones. That worked better, but not great.

Any tips, tricks, or advice from those more experienced with this?

Thanks!

I just did the isomalt thing.

I messed up as well.

It takes patience.


Did you get your sugar up to hard crack?

Isomalt needs to be 340f, way beyond hard crack.

I just use a silicone muffin cup. You'll have more control so it doesn't overflow.

Sorry for the delayed response...but just wanted to say thanks! I tried again, and it came out better this time. I can see it's just going to take a lot of practice.

I do have the silicone molds, but not for gem shapes - didn't know they make them!

Thanks again,
Miriam

I bought a set of three flexible measuring cups, work fantastic. I know someone here go there's on amazon. There are nice for putting the Isomal in the molds, and once the sugar get's hard, you can re-heat it. If you don't want to re-heat it, let it get hard, hen yo can scrunch up the cup, break up the pieces and use them later.

Ditto about the silicon muffin cup!!! That was my issue when I made some a month or so ago. Rylan gave that suggestion in another post about gems and it works perfectly.

I found these really cool little silicone cups on the baking aisle in WalMart for like $1 when I was looking for a silicone muffin pan to cut apart after I read Rylan's suggestion on another page. They work great. They were with the measuring cups.

Well today's efforts went better...I definitely will look for the silicone cups. Attached is a photo of today's results.

there great. What did you use to mould the tiny ones i was gonna try making them but clear, also what recipe/method did you use?

Thanks! I used the gem molds. I bought them on Global Sugar Art, and they have a bunch of size gem molds in the same mold sheet. Including the little ones.

I used Vy Whittington's recipe from her sugar art book.

i made the edible gems today. i have been trying to find an easy way to fill the molds without going over. i finally found a great way. i bought a basting bulb for the big and medium sized ones, and an eye dropper for the small ones. both of the items gave me amazing control over the amount of sugar that was released. the only downside is that you have to keep the sugar really hot. so i had to reheat it a couple of times. o and if your sugar starts getting thick inside the droppers. flush them with boiling water.

Where do you buy the jem molds?

Does anyone know where to buy the diamond molds that look like an actual 1 ct diamond? I have done search engines but cant seem to find it.

hobby Lobby carries the gems that look like one carat.

My isomalt has my gems coming out perfect! I use 1cup Isomalt to 1/4 cup Karo. When it's at the right temp and color, I pour it into the flexible silicone cups, then when It's time to flip( I am talking about sugar balls), I flip them over into my biggest felxible cups. It is easy to re-heat in these cups.

I hope this made sense.