How to Fix Isomalt Surface Bubbles Simi Cakes

There are a few different ways that you can go about getting rid of bubbles in your isomalt pieces, depending on where they are in the piece. But today, we are gonna focus on getting rid of bubbles that are on the surface of your isomalt decorations that were poured into molds. I'm Sydney Galpern here from Simicakes.com for "Creative Cake Design," and today I am back with another isomalt tutorial. So when you're making isomalt pieces, you may notice some little bubbles that are sitting on the surface. So this isn't gonna apply to any bubbles that are mixed into the piece or look like they're suspended, but sometimes you do get a light layer of either little or big bubbles that look like they're on the surface of the piece and may even be texturizing it a little bit.

There is a trick that you can use to get rid of those bubbles and there's actually a few different ways that you can do it, depending on the shape of the piece that you're molding. Now you'll notice these bubbles mostly when you're working with silicone molds. So silicone molds because they breathe, and different silicones may actually be more or less flexible, so breathe at different rates from the heat, can actually give off bubbles. And that is what can stick to the outside of your isomalt piece when you unmold it. So it may cause it to look a little bit more dull, not quite as shiny and reflective as you want it to be.

Now if you're using a metal or a hard candy mold, those are gonna be greased with cooking spray or oil before you use them. And generally, you're not going to have quite the same problem with the surface getting bubbles on it. They're usually a little bit shinier, and a little bit more smooth and reflective right off the bat. But you do have limitations when using hard candy molds and metal molds because they're very, very stiff. They're not gonna be as flexible to get your molds out of the pieces, and also not as great for a lot of detail or for 3D molds that you wanna create.

So silicone is going to generally be the most straightforward to use with isomalt, and the most easily accessible because there are lots of different silicone molds out there. All right, so let's look at a piece that I molded in a silicone mold. So you can see, I'm just going to flex the mold and remove this beautiful plumeria flower from my silicone mold here. This is a pretty firm silicone, this mold, so I can see that it does look very, very beautiful. I love the shape of this piece, but it's not quite as reflective and shiny as the back is.

I can see the back is very, very shiny. So what we can do is with a smooth piece like this that has very deep indents, but not a lot of little detail, I can actually take my torch and I can lightly torch over the surface. I'm gonna turn down the flame really low and just do a tiny bit over the surface, and that's gonna melt away any of those little surface bubbles. If your bubbles are bigger, you may have to do this a few times. So do a couple layers of that light heat, building up the smoothness on the surface until it becomes completely smooth.

But once that's cool, you can pick it up and you'll be able to see just how shiny and reflective the torch made piece because I melted away those bubbles. Now again, that worked on this piece because it's very smooth, it has very defined shapes, but if you're doing something that has harsh lines or rivets on it or just little details, you may not actually be able to torch the surface of the pieces. So, I have another trick for that. Now let's look at a different piece. So I poured one of these beautiful isomalt diamonds here, and you can really see those bubbles on the surface because it was a more flexible silicone.

So if I were to take something like this that has really sharp lines and facets on the gem, and let's say I were to just melt over this whole thing like I did with the flower, okay, after a second, you can see it's already lost a lot of its detail. Of course, let this cool before you pick it up, but I can already see that it has lost most of its detail. It really doesn't look like a diamond anymore. So if you have something that's really detailed, if the details are tiny, you may want to not torch this at all. But if you have bigger areas, so like crystals and diamonds and gems, what you can actually do is you can use a small metal knife.

So I'm using a little palette knife, I'm gonna heat it up with my torch until it's very, very hot. So you can see from the surface of this metal that I've done this quite a few times with this knife. So I'm heating this metal up as hot as I can get it, and then I'm actually going to use this to smooth over the edges. But because it's a flat surface, it's going to maintain the nice straight lines. So I'm gonna pick a side to do this on, you'll see a little bit of smoke, a little bit of steam there.

But by going over each one of these sides, it's actually maintaining those facets. And I'll have to wipe off this tool and then reheat it a few times, but it is keeping the nice sharp lines. And once I go all the way around with my knife, I'm gonna have a beautiful, clear gem, but still having those details preserved in the piece. Now let's say you have a different kind of piece and it doesn't have big flat edges, like a crystal or a diamond, but it's a little bit too detailed to use the torch over. There is one other thing that you can do, which is just glazing.

So when I make any isomalt piece, I always glaze this regardless because it locks out the moisture and humidity. But glaze also does a really good job at making the piece shinier and more reflective. So even if you do have a couple little bubbles left on the surface, if you did not or were not able to torch it, the glaze does help to make things shinier. So if you can't torch away the bubbles on the surface, don't worry, because odds are when you glaze your finished piece, you're still gonna have a beautiful, shiny, reflective isomalt piece that you can display onto your cakes and cupcakes and other edible creations.