Sugar Sea Glass Easy Angel Food Cake Recipe
I love this cake so much. I cannot believe I was able to combine my love for cooking and baking with my obsession with sea glass.
I spent last weekend celebrating my best friend’s birthday at our home in Ventura. We had a girl’s weekend and it was so much fun. I made a really fun birthday cake and made this Sugar Sea Glass Angel Food Cake. I can’t wait to share with you how to make it.
Some of you might not know that I love to collect sea glass. I wrote a blog post with all of my sea glass collecting tips. I am so happy I was able to incorporate my love for sea glass into the birthday cake for my best friend.
If you aren’t familiar with sugar glass, it is what they put in our bedroom window when they were filming a Sony commercial. They threw a TV out of one of our windows and the window was made with sugar glass. (Click here to learn how you can get filming at your home.) Sugar glass is the “fake glass” that you see actors crash through in the movies. It’s not made with real glass.
I made my sugar glass a little bit too thick. Just spread it out a bit thinner on your cookie sheet. But be careful, I actually cut myself on the faux sugar glass!
It still shocks me how much the sugar glass looks like sea glass. And it’s easy to make. We didn’t have a thermometer at the beach house so I had to fake it a bit. But it worked!
It still shocks me how much the sugar glass looks like sea glass. And it’s easy to make. We didn’t have a thermometer at the beach house so I had to fake it a bit. But it worked!
Sugar Sea Glass
Sugar Sea Glass can be used in so many ways. I love how it looks on the side of a cake.
Ingredients
- 2 cups white sugar
- 3/4 cups of water
- 3/4 cups corn syrup (light corn syrup is ok too)
- 1/2 tsp. almond or coconut extract flavoring
- 1/4 tsp cream of tarter
Instructions
- Prepare a cookie sheet by lightly spraying it with cooking spray. You can also use a silicone mat, but be wary of any texture with a silicone mat.
- Add the sugar, water, corn syrup, extract, and cream of
tartar into a large saucepan. - Place the pot on a medium-high burner. Stir the sugar mixture until it starts to boil.
- Cook the sugar until it reaches the hard crack stage, 295 to 309 °F (146 to 154 °C). The hard-crack stage is the highest temperature you are likely to see specified in a candy recipe. At these temperatures, there is almost no water left in the syrup. Drop a little of the molten syrup in cold water and it will form hard, brittle threads that break when bent.
- If you aren't using a candy thermometer and the drop in ice water method doesn't work, you should know that the sugar is at the hard-crack stage when it turns yellow.
- If desired, add a few drops of food coloring to the sugar recipe.
- Pour the hot sugar onto your prepared pan. Spread the sugar mixture so that it is quite thin (similar to glass). Work quickly as it will harden.
- Cool the sugar glass cool for an hour or two. I tried "smashing it" but that left the sugar glass in shreds. Use a knife to break off pieces and then used my fingers to make them smaller.
- This recipe is very hot so be careful.
If you want to make a white cake instead, you should try this recipe.
Frost the cake with buttercream frosting. For my cake frosting, I mix up one bag of powdered sugar, 1 cup soft butter, I tsp. vanilla and 2 – 3 tablespoons of milk. Place all of the ingredients in a mixer (or use a hand mixer) and mix thoroughly. See, this is an easy cake recipe.
Once the pan of sugar has cooled, break it up into pieces.
Don’t you think this sugar is special?
I pressed the sugar glass onto the side of the cake. It worked perfectly.
Start thinking about different uses for this sugar glass. I am sure you will come up with ways to use this sugar glass and easy. Please share your ideas in the comments here!
Absolutely amazing ! The homemade sea glass looks so easy to make and so authentic and added another layer to your cake. Your friend I’m sure felt special and a good time was had by all! You are so talented
Otis so perfect! I love the sea glass look💗💗. Salli.
You said you cut yourself, so I’m wondering if the sugar shards (when serving the cake) wouldn’t be a good idea to serve to my grandgirls (8 & 14 yrs)?
Also, are those brown parts of the sugar glass on the cookie sheet what you might pick off/avoid decorating with because they aren’t as clear?
❤️❤️❤️ this cake❣️
This is the besrt recipe. I think even I could pull this one off. I love the glass in the jars on the window sill. How long would you be able to keep it in jars before it goes bad?
This is the coolest idea, Leslie! I love sea glass and this look. So, so beautiful!
The cake looks great. That recipe for your sea salt looks like what we called “rock candy”; I made tons of it when I was very young….mostly flavored with cinnamon. That’s also the recipe used to make suckers on a stick. You just make drips on the cookie sheet and lay down a stick. That candy lasts forever unless it gets hot and then it sticks together. The cake would look great with little round drops of color too.
OH MY ! What a cool idea…how perfect for summer, and I love how easy. Your ideas are amazing sweet friend. Thank you for sharing this one…but I “Pinned” them all!
Yay! Glad you are loving them, Alda! And thank you so, so much.
what color of food coloring did u use just blue and green a drop
I used a little blue and a little green! You can use any color you would like!
Oh, my! I will be trying this dessert. So pretty! Thanks bunches
Yay! Let me know how you like it!