What happened to my sugar bottles?!?!?!

The isomalt got cloudy from humidity (it doesn’t take much). I am not very experienced with isomalt… but if you store the pieces in an air-tight container with a desiccant pouch they will stay clear.

I’m not sure if there is a way to reverse it, so hopefully someone with more experience will be able to help with that. I made a glass slipper out of isomalt and this happened to my first try. I tried to use my creme brulee torch to restore the clarity but the difference in temperature ended up cracking my piece.

I’ve heard that rubbing a little vegetable oil on the isomalt will help keep it from getting cloudy, but I’m not sure if it will reverse the cloudiness once it has happened. If you have enough isomalt to start over, if need be, it might not hurt just to try the veggie oil on these ones?

Good luck!

Cloudiness wasn’t necessarily the problem. After the bottles sat for several hours, dull patchy spots started to form on the outside of the bottle then eventually crystallized. I’ve never had crystals form on the finished product before. I melted the bottles again and brought the temp to 350 this time, thinking if any moisture left in the isomalt/food coloring would evaporate. They looked fine at first, but the dull patchy spots returned. I have them in airtight containers now and no crystallization. But that does me no good when I have to put them on the cake and they’re exposed to humidity again.

I’ve made at least a dozen cakes with sugar beer or champagne bottles and I’ve never had this problem before! So frustrating!! Thanks for the help though.

I have had this same thing happen to me. I was told I over stirred the isomalt and shouldn’t have added the color after I took it off the heat. I was told to add the color while it was on the heat so the bubbling of the isomalt mixed in the color. Then you wont have to stir it more to mix it in. Key for me has been less stirring the better. And I use a bakers torch to pass over the isomalt for a second to get ride of any cloudy look or air bubbles.

I would have never guessed over-stirring. I will definitely remember that in the future. Thanks!!

HappyCakes, I did brush a little veg oil over the 2nd batch of bottles where the patches had dulled. It was just a weird thing!! The sugar itself was not cloudy. It was like a film had formed in patches on the side of the bottle.

The cake has already gone out, so I just won’t worry about it anymore!! Another happy client. YAY

They look great! We are so hard on ourselves sometimes for everything to be perfect and other people don’t even notice.