Sharpening Rod

It's highly likely most of us have not given much thought into how sugar mice are made. In the present age most would assume monster factories turn out zillions of the little things from a huge automated machine started by the simple press of a button. Think again. A small manufacturer in Wales produces brilliant sugar mice by the truckload using methods that have changed little since the 1600's.

A sugar mouse starts life as part of a block of fondant made from sugar and glucose. The required measure of fondant is made to produce a batch and then natural flavourings and colour are added. The fondant is heated in a type of cauldron and stirred, until thoroughly melted, mixed and just below boiling point.

The mixture is then drawn off with a pan and poured into a stainless steel cone containing a tiny hole in the bottom blocked with a doweling rod. The process gathers pace at this stage when the operative with the cone, moves smartly to the table waiting sugar mouse moulds followed by a colleague holding a handful of string tails.

The cone is held over the first mouse shaped cavity and the rod is lifted from small hole at the bottom, just long enough for the liquid fondant to occupy the mouse shaped mould. This continues with the tails placed into the new mice almost immediately after the mould is filled by the person holding the cone. They move purposefully and quickly over each mould until it is fully occupied by 20 new sugar mice, 900 in total, with the last drops in the cone forced through the small aperture with a tapping action of the rod.

An entire batch consists of 900 mice and is made by four people in minutes. Once checked for perfection, they are left for 40 minutes to 'set'. Having rested for 40 minutes they are carefully turned out and tiny pastel coloured sugar mice are born into the world, a score at a time. The new mice are laid out on trays and deposited on a trolley, then trundled along to the curing room, a sugar mouse nursery, if you will, where they stay for several days to 'mature'.

Every schoolchild knows real mice are born blind and so are the sugar variety. After the three day curing process has taken place, the mature mice go on to the next stage. Almost unbelievably, every nose and every pair of eyes are applied by hand, mouse by mouse,with edible ink. With their new features they move forward to the last part of the process.

Visually, this is the most striking part of the procedure. Laid out in lines of alternating colours, a movable trolley hovers over the mice and they are carefully packed, all ready in colour order into clear boxes. The boxes are in turn placed into large cardboard boxes ready to shipped throughout the world.

Half a million moulds, and noses and a million eyes all made by hand for what most would think to be the simplest sweet on the shelf. Think again.

Michael Dickson is the proprietor of the on-line confectionery shop http://www.sweetjunkie.com and writes extensively on the subject of British sweets. He also produces audio and video articles on the same subject. To keep up to date with the latest on British old fashioned sweets sign up to his newsletter at http://www.sweetjunkie.com/mailinglist.asp.

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