As promised, here's another installment of "Carlton's Crazy Obsession With Candy Molds Used For Sugar". I can tell I'm going to have to work on that title; it doesn't roll off the tongue so easily.
What does roll off the tongue easily is a big thank you to my little sister, Miss Kee, for suggesting something that should have been obvious to me from the beginning of my little metal mold adventure. I was talking with her one day about my process for creating my not so cuboid sugar cubes, telling her that my meat tenderizing mallet made a lot of noise when used it to force the sugar out of the molds. Metal-on-metal. It sounded like I was back in high school Auto Body Shop class.
Begin Flashback Recollection: "Just bang out that dent, slap some bondo on it, paint it up, and it'll be good as new!" Granted, I never took auto shop; I was the student assistant for the auto shop teacher. I still heard plenty of dent pounding though. I even learned what bondo was! Ah...the 70s!
End Flashback Recollection
Not that I didn't enjoy making a connection to my high school days, mind you, but I was running the risk of putting dents in my antique metal molds with every mallet whack. Not two seconds after I made that observation to my little sister, she asked: "Why don't you use a rubber mallet? You have one of those, don't you?" Time for some double-embarrassment. First, I was embarrassed because I didn't think of this rather obvious solution. Second, I was embarrassed because I didn't own a rubber mallet. How could I have failed to equip our home with such a basic and important tool? Egads!
Once I was over my mortification, I procured a rubber mallet from a nearby hardware store and put it through it's paces on a new batch of sugar. My genius little sister was right: dull thunks instead of reverberating pinging was much better! And the molds didn't seem to suffer in the least!
Something else I've learned is that I need to avoid packing the sugar into most of these molds too tightly, otherwise even the rubber mallet won't budge them and I'll lose a substantial amount of sugar.
Below are a few samples of recent acquisitions.
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| I'm sure these two were once one at some point. |
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| Sweet "Bs" anyone? |
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| Sugar wafers... |
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| ...with sunburst and another "B"! |
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| Larger medallions. |
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| I think this is "AHP". I love the script design. |
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| See? "AHP"! |
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| One of my favorites... |
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| ...because: "B"! |
I've yet to be able to ascertain the provenance of most of my molds. The sellers don't usually know, either. So if anyone reading has information on any of the molds I've posted so far, please feel free to contact me and educate me. I'll post what I learn.
Currently listening to:
Robinella And The CC String Band - Man Over
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