Category
Terra incognita (unknown ground)
Entrant
Christine Bess Duvant
Entry
The Royal Dragon
History:
The Royal Dragon
In March 2024 we hosted Crown Tournament. A beautiful couple who were ruling at the time King Aonghus and Queen Ginevra, whom I had lots of time for and loved with all my heart, were coming with their children to witness the tournament for their heirs.
I had always wanted to try to do a subtlety and now seemed like a good time as I thought the King could use some sport.
My original thought was to do a viking ship that he might have to chase around the hall to ‘capture,’ but then the thought (and the amount of time I had) why not a dragon…one that was guarding the Ildhafn treasure, and therefore he would have to slay to win it back for us all. Huzzah!
I am not going to lie, while making it, I had NO desire to see the cute, innocent dragon dispatched. I had my doubts as to whether the Royals would drive the dagger into its breast, however, my doubts were not proven, and the King took more than great delight in ‘slaying’ the poor beast.
Making the beast:
Originally when I had looked for pirate ships stuff, I had considered using Marzipan so I had been looking into that and had brought two bags of Ground Almonds from the local bulk shop as well as lots of icing sugar. I ended up using this at the end of the project as you will see, when I made the dragon’s hoard component.
I knew that sugar paste had been used in period for amazing creations, but I had never tried it or seen it done. I went searching for recipes and period references and found this website https://alysten.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/confections4.pdf which was very helpful. This is also fun to read, but less helpful https://dcc.newberry.org/?p=16944
I didn’t have much time to make the Dragon. I was doing the food plan/cooking for Crown as well as part co-stewarding it, so I had a Sunday afternoon to ‘birth’ the dragon. I decided I didn’t have time for period wire frames etc, but instead, I would cheat and make the base out of rice crispy slice (something I had only just made for the first time the year before). I knew it could be sculpted as I had seen it on a cooking programme, so what could go wrong!
I also poked around for recipes for Sugar paste and scrounged at school for cake tools/paints. It turned out that Trudie’s husband also decorates amazing cakes, so I asked to borrow a few things from him and went up to the local cake decorating shop in Howick to purchase the dragon’s treasure and a few things to make him sparkle and look special.
I watched a few tutorials, and read a few recipes and below is the one I used:
Recipe for Pastillage:
2 Egg white
500g Icing Sugar
4tsp of CMC powder or 3tsp of tylose
1tsp flavour (optional)
I had been thinking. What if the King had to ‘slay the dragon’? Could I put a little hole in its chest filled with jam so it could bleed out? For this, I carved a hollow and lined it with white chocolate so the jam wouldn’t leak into the rice crispy. Sadly, this made the head a little droopy at the time and his posture slumped a bit, but this didn’t affect the final product as he was still able to be slain.
I moulded the dragon as you can see from the photos and then carved out his chest. The sugar paste went well over the crispy – it gave him a good texture on his tail and skin even before I put scales on him etc.
The bulk of him took about 4 hours from making and moulding crispy, to making and applying the sugar paste/moulding it etc. The skin was base painted and then I applied some glitter etc that day.
The wings were made a day later and applied/painted and then the marzipan was made at home and transported to site with him sat atop a car full of food (he was touching the roof!) and his hoard and base was finished during the feast before he was presented.
The Royals loved him and I felt sad to see him slain, however, I was informed he was very tasty with the kids (and adults) going back for rice crispy and sugary seconds!
I thoroughly encourage anyone to try to make something out of sugar paste as it was quite fun and it set beautifully. I would love to try something in the future with this method as it really was a way to bring out the artistic/sculptural side and to have fun with it.
