Isomalt Heart-Shaped Lollipops

Hello everyone and welcome to today's live event. We have a really fun project for you with Valentine's Day right around the corner. We're gonna make some very cute isomalt lollipops. I'm Rachel Tufel. I am gonna be sharing all sorts of tips and tricks with you today all about isomalt and how to create these beautiful, uh, they are.

Tasty as well but just absolutely adorable isomalt lollipops. If you haven't done so already, I would encourage you to go ahead and print off the supply list and instructions for your lollipops. Um, there's uh lots of information on there including where to get your supplies and all the tools that you'll need from start to finish. So definitely download that. In addition, we are uh live so you can ask any questions that you might have along the way as we get through this tutorial and let us know where you're from.

Say hello, talk to us we would love to hear from you. So let's go ahead and get started. I want to talk to you really quickly just about some safety. This is isomalt. It is being cooked in the microwave, heated up to a point of molten sugar, so it's really, really hot.

So one of the things that I do suggest is, especially if you're not familiar with working with hot sugar, uh, to use protective gear. These are chocolate working gloves. Cotton, um, and usually what I like to do, I, uh, use one cotton glove and then you always wanna put another protective barrier um this is a just a latex glove and this is gonna actually protect my skin from any of the hot sugar should any sugar get on my skin um and the latex, uh, the other thing you can do if you don't have the cotton glove you. You can just layer up a couple of latex gloves that way if anything gets on you, you can just rip one off and you're ready to go and it's not going to hurt you at all. So feel free to do that.

Um I have worked with Isomal a very long time. I'm familiar with the process, so I have a tendency to not use my safety gloves um those fingers of mine are pretty numb, so, um, it's up to you. Go ahead and make that choice yourself. Um, we're gonna be working with Isomalt though, and if you're not familiar with Isomalt, um, Sydney Galpern of Simmy Cakes is an amazing sugar artist. She, uh, is one of our instructors here at Creative Cake Design and Craftsy, and she does a handful of classes on our platform to teach you all about Isomal as well, so.

Feel free to check out some of those classes if you need a little bit more information on isomalt, but I'm gonna give you most of the download today, so you should be good to go for this project, but this is the ready to use isomalt and isomalt is basically sugar that is just in a slightly different chemical formation so that it's a bit more stable so it doesn't melt um the. way that a regular sugar would, uh, in the sense of if moisture hits it, yes, it does melt it just does things a little bit differently. It's not quite as unstable as our regular granulated sugar so I do recommend the isomalt. It's also much clearer and um it it just is a much better product than using just a boiled sugar in order to make your lollipops. Um, so check out Simmy cakes isomalt.

That's what we're gonna be using today, and it actually comes in, uh, these little pre-made discs, so the isomalt's ready to go and all we have to do is heat it up. And um what I'm gonna do is toss this in the microwave. You want to do this in 32nd increments and it does take a little while uh for the isomalt to come together from. It's firm state, so, uh, give it a few minutes. Um, I am, uh, I'm just doing 32nd intervals.

This is gonna allow the isomalt to come to a hotter temperature a little more slowly, and that's what we want. We don't want anything to burn, uh, we don't want it to yellow or get a golden hue at all, um, we actually. Want it to look perfectly clear and so this iso I actually warmed up a little bit ago it started to harden again um but I wanted to kind of show you sort of the process of going from the firm disks to the melted state so basically what we've done is started with our isomalt discs we're gonna. Keep heating them until they get uh nice and molten and it will look perfectly clear like what we have in this white bowl so just kind of a um a little heads up for you. I'm actually gonna heat both of mine at the same time but it does take a little while for this to come to temperature.

So while we're waiting on our isomalt to come together, let's talk about some of the other supplies that you're gonna need. So first of all um we need isomalt and then we need some sort of mold, and there are a handful of molds out there for you to choose from so they're all gonna be silicone. They, uh, you, you don't want to use the plastic versions, the clear plastic like chocolate molds, not appropriate for isomalt. The isomalt will actually just melt right through. So you do need to be mindful of what you are, uh, choosing to use.

Just gonna give these a little shake so you can sort of see this one is starting to get molten in the middle and we want to make sure that when we are melting this that we actually get it to boil, um, and you don't want it to boil too long but uh a few seconds of boiling to get all those air bubbles out of the isomalt. Um, so silicone mold, not the plastic kind, um, you can tell that this one I actually use this for a lot of different applications from cake, um, to chocolate to isomold, um, there's you can do butter cream in these there's all sorts of applications for silicone molds. You'll notice that this one has a slot for our sticks and these are specifically. Lollipop molds and the lollipop molds have a little holder for uh the uh the sticks so that's the only difference and it's one of those things that it's your choice if you want to buy the lollipop mold or if you wanna buy just a standard mold and the reason I say that is because I'm a multi-use girl. I don't like.

Typically, not always, but typically I don't buy things that are very specific. So this is very specific. This is a lollipop mold. It has a stick. It's not that it can't be used for other things.

You could if you didn't fill it all the way or if you um did fill it all the way and you needed to chop off that little end if it was chocolate, for instance, you could definitely use this for other things than lollipops. But I like to take what I would call a typical silicone mold and transform it into a lollipop mold using just really basic techniques which in this case we're gonna make this one a lollipop mold simply by adjusting how our sticks go in. So that's what I'm saying that you can kind of do a multi-purpose uh item here. OK, so we're looking at our isomalt. It's definitely moving around now it does have lots of bubbles in it yet, but it was not boiling when I took it out of the microwave, and that's what we're looking for when we are heating our isomalt for the first time.

To get ready to pour it and as you saw, I had already melted this. And um I brought it up all the way to boil. I poured a few things and let it sit at room temperature and it started to firm back up every time that you melt your isomalt you want to bring it to a boil and what that does is releases all of the air from the inside of the isomalt so that you get what we call a clear pour. Um, let's see, is it boiling? Not quite.

So just a few more seconds, it's gonna start to boil. Um, it brings all of the oxygen out of the inside of the isomalt so that it becomes clear when we pour it. Let's take a peek. Definitely boiling. So I'm gonna set it down just so you guys can see uh what's happening here, but there's lots of bubbles roaring boil, just for a few seconds, it doesn't take much.

But as you're gonna see it's gonna start to dissipate and when those bubbles start to dissipate and completely go away from the top of the surface, even when we move it around we don't want bubbles to kind of be reforming and coming to the top um we want it to sit so that it's clear um there were still going to be some. Bubbles around the silicone itself and that's just kind of a natural reaction between the hot isomalt and the the silicone that's there um so don't don't fret if you see bubbles in there but what we're looking at is the top of the surface for the most part and that might be difficult to see um mostly because of uh just. The lighting and cameras and things like that, but what you're looking for is when you move this around, no active bubbling and the active part is is the key part we don't want to see bubbles rising from the top and heading to the surface. So, uh, give it a little swirl if it's still if you see bubbles come to the top, let it sit. I'm gonna peek at this one.

This one still has a little ways to go again, that 32nd interval is mostly to keep your isomalt from burning. Um, we don't want, we don't want our isomalt, uh, to start to turn golden in color. We don't want it to, uh, taint that. You know, beautiful pore that we're gonna have, you want it to be crystal clear so our goal is to um to be clear uh clear enough that it almost looks like glass um you might have a few bubbles in there and that's totally fine, but the clearer your isomalt the better so we're gonna get this just another little swirl. I'm still seeing some bubbles kind of releasing from the side and coming up to the surface.

So I'm gonna let that go just a little longer and you can see this one is really starting to melt down as well. Alright, so this is, I'm thinking two colors today. I've got my clear um and then let me show you how to color it with airbrush color just in case you want to do something other than clear and um that'll give you more choices in the way of what decor you can make. So this is really close it's not quite where I want it to be. There's still a couple of air bubbles in there.

I actually see a tiny. Good piece from my cho or from my isomalt. I'm just gonna grab that out and set that aside. OK, so this one is now at a roaring boil and we're gonna um just set that there for a moment. When you are ready to color your isomal, you wanna make sure that you're using, uh, airbrush color.

Now this is just a liquid uh based color, alcohol based. It's not oil, it's not um it doesn't have anything else in it and that's what we want when we're coloring isomalt just a nice simple. Alcohol based uh color. You don't want to use gel color. Gel color actually has particles in it that will um really you you'll see kind of individual pieces of color within your isomalt so make sure you're using.

The alcohol based color and then again I'm not putting anything into my isool as like a any kind of silicone uh spatula. I'm not stirring it with anything I'm just rolling it around. in my bowl and that's gonna incorporate the color it's um still translucent which is lovely if you would like to use something that's um not translucent you certainly can. I'm gonna leave that there just so you can kind of see what's happening to it uh but if you, if you wanna use um a white uh airbrush color that will kind of create an opaque color so that you can't see through it so that's your option. And then once we have the isomhat ready to go, so I'm looking at this, this looks fantastic.

The air bubbles are down around the silicone but not in the inside of my pore. And I'm just gonna use one end so I'm not touching the bottom because that's very hot, um, but I'm just gonna use my bowl to guide my isomalt where I want it to go. And I'm gonna pour this about halfway full. You'll see her in a second. Why?

I'm gonna do 2 of them today. And if you pour from slightly higher than the surface, you know, don't go way down here. What you wanna do is pour a little higher so that any extra air bubbles that might be in here are gonna kind of dissipate as you pour. And then in this case I am gonna use our uh sprinkles. Now you have a few choices.

You can use sprinkles here you could um as in this one I actually made a small pink one and I turned it inside and that became my stick so you there's a lot of different ways that you can do this, but I'm gonna take my sprinkles, move this out of the way for a second. And the sprinkles are actually, believe it or not, they float. So what we need to do is just give the sprinkles a moment to settle into the isomalt that's there. You can move them around a little, but don't tug on them. Like I'm just kind of spreading them so they have.

An opportunity to get in there. You can do a nice full sprinkle, you can do a light dusting of sprinkles. You can also use your fingers, sometimes that just works better. And then you can kind of place them where you need them. Don't get your fingers in the isomalt.

Definitely don't do that. That would hurt. If you do happen to get isool on you, um, the best thing to do is to go straight to the sink with some ice cold water. So make sure. That you get that isomal off of you quickly.

OK, so I've done one a little fuller and one just with a little sprinkle just so you can kind of see what happens between uh the two styles. Sprinkles are gonna sit on the surface of the isombolt. So what I'm trying to do is lock them into the basically the middle of our uh lollipops here. And if you were to pour isomalt on this right away, that warm isomalt from below and the new isomalt from on top is literally going to allow those sprinkles just to float to the top again. And the top surface of this lollipop is actually the backside and so you don't get to see all those sprinkles if they all settle on the backside.

So I like to suspend them in the middle. um it's just kind of, um, one of the things that I have learned through working with the isomalt and with sprinkles is that you know they rise to the top which ends up. Being the back of your mold, so, um, I like to give them a moment. It lets the isomalt set and firm up a little bit. It grabs on to the sprinkle and then when you add more isomalt on top of it they're literally suspended within the isomal which is just to me just kind of a really cool effect that you get from your uh pouring technique.

It's just a lot of fun. So while we are waiting for that to set up just a little bit, doesn't have to be a lot. I'm gonna check this one. This one is ready, so let's just move a couple of things here. I'm gonna bring in this other mold and one of the things that I like about this mold is, of course, it has the lovely uh lollipop stick holder which is really nice, super helpful.

But what I found is these sticks are so light that they they like to move around. So if you happen to have two of them, I actually line these up so that uh when I'm pouring you want about half, at least 1/3 to uh overlap inside of the lollipop mold and you could do the same over here, but this one's really just there for support. It's not gonna actually get sugar in it. Pour, um, just set a few of these. I'm gonna pour maybe 3 or 4.

We'll see how much ice and malt we get through, um, and same process, you know, this is, it's warm, it's OK. I can touch it, but it's if I were to hold on to for a long time, it would definitely be too hot for me to handle. So nice long pour. Then you're just gonna stop it when it gets full. Don't worry about the excess that's off there.

I'll teach you how to get that off. If you get really good, just kind of count in your head how long you're pouring each time. That's helpful. If you get these little strands, don't worry. You can just pull them away.

They break right away. And once the sugar really starts to heat up or cool down, I should say, opposite here, uh, this is way too much. Uh, but once it starts to cool down, it pours thicker. It doesn't pour as fluidly. So that's what's happening right now.

It's actually needs to be warmed up just a little bit. When you can see it, I don't know if you can see that, you can really see it kind of like Moving slowly, sluggish is, I guess how I would describe it. Uh just toss it back in the microwave again. Um, and in this instance it's still warm. It's just not as fluid as I'd like it to be, so I'm just warming it up for a few seconds to get that fluidity that I need.

It just needs to be a little bit smoother. Let's see, there we go. So you can see the difference. It just really wants to pour right out. But I can control it much better now that it's the right consistency, so just keep that in mind as you are working with isomalt that the consistency of your isomalt is really key.

If it's too thick, it just doesn't want to pour the way that you need it to. And if it is the right consistency then it just it pours it stops it's more like water almost where you pour and stop and it happens almost instantly versus something that's got a lot of um depth and texture and just that extra like gooeyness it it definitely doesn't want to pour nicely and it kind of just flows with it and keeps going. So we're gonna let these set, um, you want them to cool completely before removing them from your molds and um, this, these are smaller molds, so it's not gonna take nearly as long as it will uh for these uh to come to temperature. So our next step, so with these, our sprinkles are definitely set in there. They're not going anywhere.

Um, there might be a a few on the surface that are loose, that's OK. It just didn't touch the isomalt. We're gonna just heat up our clear for a moment. And then we're gonna be able to uh pour our second layer and these sprinkles are not gonna float up. Um, if there's any loose in here, you can just dump them out.

Nice and easy. Now I know that when I go to pour uh this next layer of isomalt, it's not going anywhere. Let's see here. So I'm actually gonna boil this one again. That one was pretty firm just from sitting out for, I don't know, maybe 5 minutes while I was working on the second mold here.

Um, it's gonna need to come back to a boil again just to get all those bubbles out, super close. Do we have any questions so far? Isomalt is just such a cool, um. Such a really cool product to work with. I love that it's clear.

I love glass in general. All right, so this is um boiling. It's just gonna be a moment for that to kind of come. We'll we'll check some questions. Uh, let's see.

Lisa says nice I really like this. I'm glad you like it because it's a really fun product to work with and of course um you can make such a variety of projects with Isom Malt um any holiday events. Anything that you can think of, you can make a lollipop for it. Um, and what's nice about it is you can customize them so you can customize from color, shape, size, and you can put them on lollipop sticks or not. That's totally up to you.

Um, if you put them on lollipop sticks, you have the option of, you know, wrapping them with cute little cellophane and putting a bow on it. You can display them as I have with, um, just a jar. These are just little M&Ms inside um with your lollipops, so they make cute um gifts. They also um are edible, so that's even better, which is great. Alright.

Angelise says good morning from Tampa. You are way warmer in Tampa than we are here in Minnesota that's for sure. I'm a little jealous right um and Lisa asked the question, is there a limit of time before the isomalt will stiffen? And is there a time, um. Time limit before it will, yeah, before it will step in, yes, absolutely, um, it, it's gonna vary though and that's a hard that number is not an easy number to tell you because it's gonna depend on how much isomalt you have in your bowl and.

Um, at what point in time it's going to solidify again, so a tiny amount of isomalt is going to solidify much faster than a really huge bowl that's gonna contain that heat and keep it going. So I've reheated this, boiled it. It's now, um, not bubbling anymore, so I'm gonna go ahead and pour the second half. Of the mold. And I'm just taking my time making sure I'm covering all of the sprinkles.

And it's at this point that I also want to make sure I insert my lollipop stick. So I'm gonna set my stick again. These ones are pretty heavy, so be sure to cover that at least um by half, so half of. I'm gonna need more isomalt for this second one because you can I don't know if you can see it, but it's already starting to firm up so you see that time limit really depends on how much isomalt you have in your bowl. So let's deal with the stick on this one.

What I'm gonna do is actually tilt it in just a little bit and I'm gonna spin it so now my stick is fully covered in isomalt. And that just allows the stick to actually uh be fully submerged in the isomalt and it's gonna hold on better. So if I were just to set my stick right on top of the isomalt, it, it doesn't have much to hold on to like it's just gonna barely tap into that um if you fully just rotate it. Get your other secondary stick again, this is part of the. Using a bold that's not made for lollipops, but it's OK, we'll make it work, right?

That's what this is all about. OK, so we're gonna leave that one there. I've got enough isomal. It just needs to be warm just a little bit. So we'll get that one going And, and then we'll, we'll do the second one as well.

But these are getting pretty close. Usually what I do is just tap the edges so I can touch it, but I do feel it's still warm. So, um, we're gonna let those go just a little bit longer. Um, thank you, gentlemen. Um, she says they're cute.

They are, they're adorable. They're so fun, so cute. And we've got a question about adding flavors so you can definitely add flavors to these. You want to use candy flavor. Um, there are very specific, uh, flavors out there to, uh, uh, give flavor to all sorts of things.

So there's oils out there to not use oils in is. It's basically think about isomalt as being water um the water and the oil do not mix, so you can't use an oil candy um like for chocolate and you don't want to use a chocolate flavoring. You need to find something that is alcohol based so for instance we can absolutely. Use alcohol based extracts, so a vanilla extract an almond extract something like that, lemon um would be lovely, but there are very specific flavorings for isomalt um they're just water based or alcohol based so uh make sure that you're getting the right flavor profile um or type of flavoring to put into all of your uh isomalt. The other thing is um making sure that uh your uh your isomalt is um A good quality as well so there's a lot of different products out there.

There's different brands out there. Oh, there are also what they call isomalt crystals, and that is the raw form of isomalt kind of like how we get granulated sugar in the supermarket that's that's what I'm talking about when I say granules. um, those granules, um, are not what you necessarily want. You can definitely use them. But there's a process of cooking them with just a touch of water, bringing them to a certain temperature to temper them and then uh cooling them again and that's what uh Simicakes has done for us already.

She's taken. The isomalt granules she's cooked them to her specific temperatures and what she um finds is stabilize them and works the best and then she pours them into molds and then we're able to just reheat them really quickly in the microwave so it kind of takes the um. The guesswork out of the process of using isomalt um when they're pre-made like this for us. They're basically preheated, um, and so it makes it really easy just to warm them up in the microwave. So think about that when you're looking for isomalt.

But that's a great question. Flavoring is, um, yeah, it's one of those things that can be a little tricky. All right, so this is what I I want to show you. I have heated this maybe just a little too long. It's got just an amber color.

There's nothing wrong with it. You can still use it. Um, if it were to be a really dark amber, kind of like a. That beer color, um, don't use it. It's not gonna taste very good.

That's caramelized sugar, um, and if it goes too dark it gets very, very bitter. So I'm gonna use this anyway because uh I'm not actually going to uh sell these or give these away as gifts, um, so I'm actually gonna use it, but, um, that tiny bit of color doesn't bother me a whole lot. It's actually gonna come out because it's got a thin over top of this. It's gonna come out looking a little more clear than it actually is. But that's, it's a good example, a good learning experience for you guys to see um when you've heated it too much, so.

Basically, uh, what happens is every time I hit that microwave and then I stop it every time I turn it back on, it adds another 30 seconds and so I wasn't paying attention and it went longer than it should have. So this one is just going to be um like half of the mold, not the entire. Uh, heart. And that's mostly just cause I did not have enough isomal in there. I thought maybe I could spread it, but it's not quite there, but we're gonna leave that.

And what I'm going to do is show you how to de-mold them. And then we're gonna have fun with a torch. um, now. In order to get these out again, you want to um just feel the bottom of your mold. If it still feels very warm, let it sit.

Do not touch your isomal and these actually feel a little warm, so I'm gonna pull one out for the sake of showing it to you so you know what not to do. um, but I'm gonna pull out this really thick one because I know um it's definitely not set, it needs more time. But I'm gonna show you if it's not set what happens is it's just deformed it's not the right shape um if I were to smush this it would smush very easily so let me just um kind of again show you what not to do. They're not ready, totally smus. Um, you know, they're gonna not hold their shape.

Uh, one of the things that you can do is, um, you can toss this in the refrigerator if you'd like. I don't, I personally don't recommend it. I mean that's a time saving method, uh, but what happens is our refrigerators have a lot of moisture in them. um, they are meant to kind of keep things uh from spoiling and having some amount of moisture in there is key. So for lollipops, we don't actually want them to get wet.

Sugar and water don't work well together. Even with isomalt while you have a longer period of time before the moisture will affect the isomalt, um, they still will eventually start to melt in a place where there's too much humidity, for instance. So you want to um just let these come to temperature as they are, um, and when they come out. I have one here I'll show you when they come out they actually have little bubbles on the surface so you can see right at the base here. I'm gonna set this down just so I'm not moving around too much, but you can see at the base here there's tiny little bubbles and what that is is the reaction from the silicone and the hot sugar or or isomalt in this case.

Um, they just form this like little barrier of bubble, and those little bubbles will actually go away very easily, uh, with a torch. So we'll do that in a moment when we pull these other ones out, but we want to make sure that they're nice and solid so we don't end up with squishy hearts and things that don't look great. Um, this one is a great example. So when we pop these out of the molds, um, they have this like cast on them. It's like this, uh, layer of, uh, just bubble, um, but it goes away.

So let me show you how to do that. Any other questions too? OK, so, um, when we are working with heat in order to uh melt these, make sure you're working on a silicone mat and make sure nothing else that can melt is near it. Um, this is a really, uh, high, uh, high heat producer. This is, uh, different from your traditional kitchen torch.

Um, I highly recommend using a kitchen torch. They're smaller and they don't run quite as hot because it's a, it's a small amount of gas that's exiting. Um, these torches are pretty heavy duty, so you don't need much, um, and it does require uh a lighter. OK, let's make sure we can get the lighter on first. There we go.

It just doesn't want to stay. Let's start over. It was working. Well, I had a lighter that worked, I promise, cause I did all these other ones. Well, we're not gonna be able to show you that.

Sorry about that guys. um, for some reason that one's not working. um. But what you want to do is just barely torch the surface, um, and it will change from being this like really a matte looking um cloudy isomalt it will change over to this. So if we get this working, um, it's a really cool effect to be able to show you, um.

Sadly, I don't, I don't know what happened to my letter. Maybe it's too small, it doesn't have enough um uh fluid in it, but I swear I just used it. At any rate, um, a little bit of torch and, um, a little bit of heat, uh, will actually take this away really quickly and it makes this beautifully clear, uh, isomalt look and this will stay for quite some time just as it is uh so it um it has this beautiful sheen it just takes those bubbles away like instantly it's fantastic. If you want to prolong the look of that clear glaze, uh putting a spray over top of it. Now this is an edible glaze and so this is it's just gonna put this very light misted um glaze over our isomalt which actually is um a way to prolong the life of our isomalt so it works really.

Really well in um preserving these for just a little bit longer so you wanna make sure that this dries completely and then you can pack them away in an airtight storage bin you can put them into um any sort of like cellophane bag, put a little ribbon on it um but this is kind of the beauty of uh the the isomalt once it's sprayed and ready to go. Um, let's see, we do have another question. Uh, does it matter how many times it's rewarmed? Um, Amy, great question. It doesn't matter how many times you rewarm the isomalt, it's a matter of that temperature, right?

So if we have a small amount and I put it in here for a full minute and it's boiling and boiling. It's gonna caramelize and so we just wanna make sure that we don't caramelize the isomal. That's the biggest key here um caramelizing the isomal is what changes the color and so rewarming it multiple times as long as you've not gone over that threshold of caramelization you can keep. Warming it and reusing it and oftentimes what I'll do is, you know, I'll have some that's warmed and I will just add more to it and then rewarm it again and so it almost freshens it up um it gives you that nice consistency of flow again as well so it's a point of. Uh, not so much how many times you've rewarmed.

It's really the point of the temperature that you've warmed it to. So just keep that in mind as you're warming and rewarming, you know, um, the, the small amount of isomalt that was in here, um, has definitely firmed back up. You can. See how it just cracks in the mold, you know, you, you've got tiny little pieces of isomal on the edges, um, that's all good isomal. That's why I, that's also why I use a silicone um bowl to warm.

And Sydney talks a lot about this in her classes on the website, but, uh, you don't wanna waste any of that. It's all great isomalt you can keep rewarming it, keep reusing it until from a color perspective it's not what you want anymore, but it doesn't affect the flavor until it is um really. Quite dark, um, but that caramelization that happens is is actually a flavor thing and really nice as long as it's not too much um I'm just gonna jiggle this around so that we can get it melting a little bit better, um, with that caramelization, uh, that's happening is very, very much like how we would caramelize sugar. For like a banana Foster's or a creme brulee for instance um you can definitely um have a certain point in which that caramelization tastes lovely and of course there is a very clear point in which it doesn't anymore just becomes really bitter so I wouldn't recommend reheating this um and getting that caramelization uh but if you happen to get there, you know, don't stress over it it's um it's still usable to a certain point. But that's kind of the beauty of isomalt like you can't.

With isomalt it's a lot harder to caramelize. It's a lot harder to mess up, um, basically, um, than it is regular sugar. So, uh, and again it's just that chemical bond, um, that's in there, uh, that makes it different from regular sugar. So, uh, yeah, it's a little chemistry lesson there for you. All right, Lulu's treasure trove saying hello from Arkansas.

Good morning, um. And let's see, we have another question. Karen is asking, can you make a small mold and then put it in a larger mold without damaging the smaller mold? Um, so that's what I did with this one and it might be a little difficult um to see, but I basically made this mold so let's see if this one will come out. It's definitely uh cooled off now.

So I took this smaller heart that I made. And I still filled my uh bigger mold halfway like I did with the layer of uh the um sprinkles I find my words so I basically filled it. I tapped this little one right in place on top of the isomalt and then I poured more on top of that and that's how I got to this one. It's a little hard to see. Let's put it up against this cotton just so you can see it.

So there is definitely the heart on the inside. There is a point where it's going to just um kind of lose its shape if it's too hot, uh, so once you put your isomalt in and you dip this in, you leave it, you don't move it and then you pour your next set of isomalt over top of it and you're good to go. Um, if I can, I think we have time. We've got about 15 minutes we can show you how to do that. That'll be a little bonus lesson for you, um, but yeah, absolutely, um, that's kind of the fun part.

If you move it though, it definitely is gonna misshape and um you're gonna have a harder time distinguishing what's on the inside. uh I will tell you this as well, uh, let me just clear this out sorry guys um. I will tell you that the uh the method of doing both of these together, there's probably a limit to, you know, the size, the um shape, um. I hear a torch. That's a good sign.

All right, so while we have the torch, thank you, sir. So while we have the torch, let's go ahead and clear this one. So this has that bubbly film on it and for lack of a better word, um, and we take our torch as we just barely swipe over it. I mean barely. You don't need much with, especially with this torch.

You don't need much. It just goes away. And you can see I'm just kind of going over it nice and lightly. If I go too close or for too long, that actually melts the isomalt fully and what we're trying to do is just barely melt that top edge. And I'm just gonna keep spinning it.

Normally I would, I would work around it but for the sake of showing you guys. It's literally just barely going to melt the top of that surface. I'm gonna do the backside as well, just. To make sure that it's nice and clear back there. All right, I'm gonna turn that off because I think.

For the sake of uh being able to hear me but you can see now how different um that looks compared to when it first comes out of the mold. So don't be discouraged when you pull them out of the mold and you see a little something there um this is part of the process of IO mold is working to get. That, uh, nice and clear it's beautiful like and it shines literally just like glass um it's just such a beautiful product. I'm so glad um that we got that torch up and running so I could show you that because it's a really cool, uh, very, very cool process to see. All right, let's see if we can heat this just a little longer, make sure that's totally off.

What do you guys think of the torch piece? Like, um, I'm just, I'm kind of blown away by the difference. I mean it's just always such a huge difference, uh, one from the next so I'll put this one next to it just so you can kind of see, you know, it sort of has that casted look on it and. Um, that's definitely not what you want when you're making lollipops. All these are still a little warm.

I'll be honest, this one, because it's not filled all the way to the top, is definitely, uh, cooler and almost ready. All right, so we've got a nice boil on it now. I'm just gonna let that sit there for a moment. Um, and I'll show you kind of that secondary process, a little bonus, little bonus information for you here, but, um, that's what we're all about. We like to try to teach all of you as much as we possibly can.

I mean, at least my goal as an instructor is to show you uh all the things that I've failed at basically and then you know eventually perfected and. You know, part of working with isomalt is a little bit of trial and error, uh, to a certain extent you know you need to, um, play with it and understand it and know the properties and see what's gonna happen um before uh you can make something that looks perfect, that's clear that has, you know, beautiful sprinkles and all that good stuff right, this one is ready. I'll pull this one out for you. Um, so yeah, I mean this one is much thinner, so that's the other thing that you can do with a mold is, you know, the difference, let's see if I can line these up together so you can see the difference in just in height, um. You know, if you want a thinner uh look to your lollipops, don't fill the mold quite as full.

You might have to finagle your lollipop stick a little differently, and one of the ways that you can do that is simply, uh, once you, if you just use these uh at a smaller height like I did here, you can just pop. Them out and then dip your stick into isomal and attach it to the back as well. You don't have to do the process where everything is sandwiched all in one. Totally up to you how you do that. Um, I like doing that because it's just a cleaner look when it's when it's set inside of your sugar, you you can't see the clear stick um it.

not very well at all unless you get up real close to it. So if you are gluing it to the back, you'll have, you know, just a little bit of extra isomalt that's not perfectly smooth maybe you'll see where the uh the stick actually attaches. I prefer to just simply, you know, show, uh, or, or sink it in so it doesn't show at all. Your choice. All right, let's see.

Just a moment longer. So again, when you are doing a technique like this where you're sinking one lollipop into the next, um, it's really important that uh you are just being mindful of not moving. The extra piece because once the hot isomalt goes in here and I'm putting this, you know, somewhat cool isomalt into it, two things are gonna happen. First of all, this is gonna start to melt because it's hot isomalt that it's gonna be sitting on. And if you move this at all, it's gonna distort the shape of your secondary lollipop and we certainly don't want that.

Um, the second thing that could potentially happen, um, and another reason why you don't want to move it is cold icool. Hitting hot isomalt can potentially crack so um that's kind of the downside to this particular um method, but I like it because it's a little more unique than just a straight up. Lollipop That's why I like to add, you know, sprinkles or other types of things. So almost all the way full. I'm gonna set that in the middle, right where it belongs and then you actually want to, I used to have um.

I'm actually just gonna use this, uh, secondary mold here just to uh add a little weight to the stick because it's not a very heavy piece that little guy is just not a little heavy uh not a heavy piece at all and then I'm just gonna put a little more on top. Just to fill the rest of the mold. There we go. And then that just needs to sit, so don't touch it. That is the key here.

Don't touch it, um, and you will end up with a lollipop that has a little heart on the inside of it so hopefully you guys can see that. I know that that's it's a little hard to see just uh because of uh the lollipop itself is shiny, um, but it, it definitely has that little there you go that has that little heart on the inside. And it's just a fun little extra, you know, piece, um, of, uh, decor, I guess is the way I, I would look at it. Um, something that I didn't do with this one is I also put tiny little hearts around the outside, but it's so thick that you can't, you can't really see them when you look down at it. So, uh, you definitely, it was again it was a trial and error process just to kind of see what else I could add to this.

I think if I had put them closer to this small heart it would have worked, uh lovely and not been a problem at all so. Um, just keep that in mind, um, and you can, uh, again, don't move, don't move anything, just let it go the way it is, and then once it's dry you can pull it out and again you get this beautiful look. So, um, all right, what else do we have? Oh good. Um, Karen Lee, thank you.

She says, love this so much. You're so helpful with fun ideas. Appreciate that. That's my whole goal in life is to share everything I can with all of you guys so you can do the same thing. Um, and Lisa says she can see the difference, the shine and clarity looks tasty.

I promise they're delicious. Um, the regular isomalt without any flavor basically tastes like sugar, you know, it's got a nice flavor and Amy says, thanks so much. This is my first video seems fun. um, they make these for your kid. that would be wonderful.

I, I, I definitely, uh, think that, um, you, you should, uh, you should try this. this is just a really fun project to do. They're great for gifts, um, they're great for just general decor. uh you can do party favors with them. Um, we're gonna be wrapping up here in the next few minutes, but I want to say if you're not a member of Creative Cake Design or Craftsy, I would encourage you to sign up.

We're gonna put a link in the box for you so that you can sign up. This is our next project we're gonna be doing at 11:30 central time. These are little chocolate cake pops and these cake pops are just one absolutely delicious. Um, there's cake on the inside. It's mixed with a binding agent like cream cheese or butter cream or even fruit preserves, and then we put it into a chocolate mold and they're just adorable.

They're little, a little lollipops, literally little cake. Lollipops, um, they come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes that you can make. Um, it just adds a special touch than just simply rolling a ball of cake and dunking it into chocolate. Um, so I'm gonna show you exactly how to do these as well. So stick around if you're a gold or a premium member, um, we'll definitely uh be teaching you all about those as well.

Any other questions about Isomal while you have me? um, feel free to let us know. We'll be, uh, checking comments and, um, I'm so glad that all of you were able to join in today. Um, feel free to rewatch this as many times as you need to. That's the beauty of filming with you is you get to join live if you can and rewatch as many times.

to make sure you get all of the information so if you have questions, feel free to let us know. um, I do pop in every once in a while and try to check questions later as well um but I hope that you have enjoyed uh this uh tutorial all about making isomalt lollipops. They're adorable, they're delicious and so fun to make. So thanks so much for joining us today.