Corn syrup - ice shards

[Tinkerball]

I have a couple of Frozen cakes coming up and Im planning to decorate with "ice" shards dyed blue, all recipes online suggest using corn syrup. Obviously this is American and difficult to get hold of here, its on Ebay but very expensive! Someone suggested golden syrup, its not about taste but colour - I would think might not work as its darker colour to begin with. Found a tub of glucose syrup - do you think this would be suitable?

Marking place as I have sort of promised to do the same, and was thinking glucose syrup as well...

I've made edible blood for a birthday cake before using corn syrup (birthday girl paid for it!) and basically its just a thick clear syrup...its the clearness which will make it easy to colour blue isnt it.

I'm making dd2 a frozen birthday cake in a few weeks and I'm going to use isomalt to make the ice shards.

Its about £6 including delivery from amazon for the clear one. I'm going to use some edible glitter either mixed in or on top for extra sparkle.

Coloured isomalt is more expensive, especially blue, but I'm hoping adding a bit of gel food colouring will work, if not I'll leave the ice shards clear.

Oh sounds good crazykat - will you come back on this thread and post your results if you dont mind?

How would you make them using isomalt, forgot to ask!

Coloured isomalt the same price as the clear stuff here (good supplier, I can recommend them)

I've never used isomalt before but I've seen it used.

I'm planning to melt it and just pour it onto a baking tray and leaving to cool. Then I'm going to score it into the shapes I want and break it. I don't want the shards to be all the same as I want it to look natural so it doesn't matter too much about them being perfect.

I'm going to order some to practice with next week and ill let you know how it turns out.

Thanks for the link secret those prices are much better then amazon for the blue one.

I've melted foxes glacier mints to make gingerbread house windows. If it breaks it's very 'shardy', maybe try that instead?

I considered that, justgotosleep, but really wanted blue shards and also don't really want the whole cake to end up tasting minty.

Looking forward to hearing results of isomalt experiments.

Corn syrup (on amazon) is cheaper than isomalt or glucose syrup I think - you can get a 700g bottle for £5.50.
What do you do with it in the recipe? Just wondering if you might be able to make something with a normal sugar syrup? I've made moulded jewels from hard candy before, I'm sure that just used white sugar.

I make this, you need liquid glucose.

In the supermarket it's about £1.80 a tube. The Dr Otketer one is good

Ingredients:
500ml water
785g granulated sugar
A few drops of gel food colouring (optional)
250ml liquid glucose
¼ tsp cream of tartar

Apparatus:
One shallow baking tray, lined with foil, with no gaps
Oil spray
Sugar thermometer

Recipe:
Spray your prepared baking tray all over with the oil spray at least 30 minutes before you want to use it. Place the water, sugar, food colouring (if using), liquid glucose and cream of tartar into a pan with a sugar thermometer attached and stir to combine. Bring to the boil over a medium heat, until it reaches 150°C – approximately 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let the mixture cool to 130°C – approximately 10 minutes, then pour the mixture quickly and carefully into the oiled baking tray. Allow to cool completely. Pop the sugar sheet very carefully out of the tray, then, using a meat tenderiser, hit the sheet carefully in the centre so it cracks into shards.

I assume you mean like this

Isomalt from Lakeland or eBay worked for mine and I am a very inept cake decorator!

Ooh. Interesting. I am now torn between corn syrup and the apparent ease of Isomalt.

glucose will definitely do it.

Corn syrup is mostly fructose, so slightly sweeter, but the chemistry is very similar and will certainly do what you want

I just used alot of sugar and water and boiled until it became thick and sticky. Then as it cooled slightly I added the blue food colouring. I then poured onto a non stick baking tray to harden.

Not scientific at all but it worked

The American food section in our Tesco has 5 sorts of pancake syrup and no corn syrup

HoneyDragonMumshnet

Thats great, thanks for that recipe so much, I have liquid glucose in the house that I've never used. I think your cake looks brilliant!!

Sadly our Tesco doesnt have the corn syrup, I had already checked that out..but they do have expensive chocolate bars like Butterfingers that my kids loved last year on holiday in California!

Just checked out Amazon to...that might be worth it as you can also make the most realistic edible blood using corn syrup (with cocoa powder and red colour )!

As I said elsewhere, we did the shards and got the corn syrup from Ocado.

If anyone in North Warwickshire wants some, I have a spare bottle!

www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Karo-Light-Corn-Syrup/43269011

I don't think Ocado deliver here, I'm in Scotland. That would have been fab.

Marking my place again to try HoneyDragon's version tomorrow before I give in and order isomalt and double the cost of making a cake that I am not getting paid for