Due to COVID-19, my volunteering efforts lately at the farmhouse museum are few and far between, so it is nice that today’s blog deals with faux sugar cubes.
So yesterday, It was nice to help set up the 2022 spring farmhouse display.
The first thing is to dust the stove, tables, wooden chairs, and other furniture with a soft dust cloth. There are also a few cob webs on the windows and in the corners which we removed with a long handled wand. Of course, we wore our soft white gloves for handling and moving vintage items.
The kitchen table usually has a red and white checked tablecloth on it but for spring, a vintage flowered cloth tablecloth came out of our collection storage.
Hardy Breakfast on the Farm Display
The “Hardy Farm Breakfast” kitchen display was put out. We try to do a different and educational display in each of the three rooms. The “Hardy Farm Breakfast” display consists of two sunny side up eggs, pancakes, a plate of biscuits, toast, jelly, and a bunch of bacon.
Of course, we always put out a little strawberry jam out for those biscuits. The food is all fake but it looks like a delicious breakfast for the early rising farmer who needs to get up early and start the farm chores.
In the parlor on the child’s table there were a couple of children’s books and a doll house family consisting of three members.
The dinning room was our last room to set up in the “Birthday Party on the Farm” theme. The dinning room table holds a faux cake and birthday cards. The cards are from an old country store with one of the birthday cards dating back to the 1940’s.
In the dinning room there was also a pair of white gloves, glasses for punch, and a small dish of faux candy, a small tea cup, vintage sugar bowl and a creamer.
Faux Sugar Cubes
Something was missing from the dinning room display so we decided to look into adding some faux sugar cubes to the vintage sugar bowl.
I wasn’t sure when sugar cubes were invented, so I had to do a little research on the topic.
Brief History of Sugar Cubes
I found out that Jakub Krystof Rad, back on January 23, 1843, took out a patent on sugar cubes. Rad was the manager of a sugar plant in the Czech Republic.
Back in the 1840’s, sugar was sold in hard brown cones or loafs. Pincers were used to remove servings of sugar or you could pry a serving size lump of sugar off the cone. Rad’s wife mentioned to him that she cut her finger removing sugar. Rad liked the idea individual servings of sugar and, thus, the sugar cube was invented.
Rad first pulverized the sugar. The sugar was then reformed into cube-teaspoon servings. Sugar cubes were easy to serve and to transport. They became quite popular for use in hot tea or coffee.
In the United States back in 1962, sugar cubes administered Joseph Salk’s Sabin oral polio vaccine.
Sugar Cubes in Bar Drinks
Sugar cubes are also, used to make some some bar drinks. A sugar cube with a few dashes of bitters can be added to champagne in glass flutes.
In the 1990’s, an absinthe-splashed sugar cube was lite on fire for a showy drink display. Absinthe was invented in the 19th Century by the Swiss. Using herbs and spices, the anise-flavored drink was historically high in alcohol content.
Sugar Cubes Today
When sugar and sweeteners in paper packets became widely available, sugar cubes became less popular.
However, I remember not too far back of pyramids made out of sugar cubes for grade school projects.
Making Faux Sugar Cubes
I initially made two different types of faux sugar cubes out of Styrofoam and white packing sponge material.
Both materials work, however, the white packing sponge made a superior looking sugar cube.
To make the sugar cubes, collect white packing sponge material, then cut it into slices and then into cubes. A ruler is helpful to get the lines straight and a cutting board to protect the work surface. Working with a large seriated bread knife, cut one set of cubes at a time.
I made one cup of faux sugar cubes for my project.
This may or may not be enough to fill the vintage sugar bowl at farmhouse. (The pink vintage sugar bowl photographs on today’s blog does not belong to the farmhouse.)
When displaying the faux sugar cubes, the top cubes need to be positioned carefully so that the slight layer lines are not visible.
Ending Notes
I’ll let my Readers know how the sugar cubes look in the farmhouse’s sugar bowl. Anyone remember one lump or two?
Faux Sugar Cube Update: 4-27-2022
The faux sugar cubes look great in the farmhouse’s dinning room. In fact, someone told me that they thought they were real. Always, a nice comment for a person making faux food.
www.saveur.com, imbibemagazine.com, liquor.com, jamanetwork.com and Wikipedia online sources were used to research today’s blog.