Name: Spun Sugar Nests
Ingredients: 3 lbs sugar; 1 lb glucose; 1 quart water

Spun Sugar Nests

Ingredients

3 lbs sugar
1 lb glucose
1 quart water

Directions

Prepare

Set two cases on a flat surface far enough apart to span your iron bars across.
Lay four or five bars on the boxes.
Take a wire egg-whip.
Cut the wires so that the ends hang loose.

Spin the sugar

Cook sugar, glucose, and water to 300°F (150°C).
Set the batch on the slab.
Dip the wires into the batch.
Swing back and forth over the wires.
Take the fine strings that hang.

Shape the nests

Form them into bird nests.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Cooks into a glassy base that sets hard and forms the fine strands.
Glucose: Interferes with sugar crystal formation, keeping the syrup smooth and the strands flexible.

The step that matters

Cooking the batch to 300°F (150°C). At this hard-crack temperature the syrup has little water left, so the strands set firm and brittle. Undercooked syrup stays sticky and will not hold its threads, while overcooked syrup darkens and turns bitter from caramelization.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.