Fragile - Lorenzo Puca

A technical manual that starts from the basics, explaining every single technique of pulled, poured and blown sugar up to the maximum expression.

Genius, madness, humility all dwell in this world champion, who was able to generate a disruptive force from his artistic and technical skills. This not only led him to conquer, in 2021, that Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie so dreamed of, but also to establish himself as an undisputed talent and great innovator. Today these qualities find their maximum expression, in this volume, that fully reflects his emotional and professional charge, codifying and illustrating – in a magnificent way! – his knowledge about sugar.

FRAGILE is his first book which, right from the title, declares the soul not only of the subject, artistic sugar, but also positively that of the author, a synonymous of a thousand other features that can be found on every page, as important gestures and new techniques. A heritage of evolutions that demonstrate the genius not only of Lorenzo Puca, but also of the Italian confectionery culture.

New showpieces next to ancient procedures are all explained in detail through is passion, which makes everything clearer and more joyful, thanks to his drive for improvement. This positive attitude allows anyone to understand, almost to “touch”, every artistic sugar work, every innovation, as the results of his both innate and cultivated know-how, stimulated by his incessant study and tireless desire to understand, experiment and go beyond, in an infinite love story with the ductility of the material, and the sense of color, three-dimensionality and transparencies.

After an interesting historical introduction by Emilia Coccolo Chiriotti, the volume gets to the heart of the subject between professional implications, equipment and ingredients, cooking, coloring, satin finishing and storage techniques. The basic recipes are followed by the ones of pastillage, crystallized sugar, tassé and rock sugar, before moving on to new technologies, the preservation of finished works and creative thinking.

The heart of the work are the three chapters dedicated to pulled, blown and poured sugar, explaining all the techniques, from the classic to the absolute novelties, illustrated in detail with photographic step by step. To conclude, a magnificent roundup of pièce montées is described step-by-step.

“Handle with care and curiosity, the contents are not fragile at all.”