Backyard FX 6: Break Glass

Erik tells us how to get that broken glass effect without a trip to the hospital (but you've still got to be careful!). It's called "sugar glass" and all you need is cooking spray, corn syrup, sugar, a pot, a pan, cream of tartar, and a thermometer.

Eric: This week’s project is a viewer request from Bret Carl. Now I am going have Gary read Bret’s email while I spin the wheel of prosperity to determine our budget. [Music Playing] Gary: I am just wondering if you would be willing to take any requests. I need to know how to make sugar glass but I am more of a visual person. Feel like doing an episode on sugar glass creation? Eric: Thanks for the email Bret. This is a great project. I have always been curious about sugar glass so I am excited about this build; we have got a $20.00 budget so let us get to work. Now I am here at my kitchen where in this spiffy BFX brand apron because cooking sugar glass is not that different from baking a cake or cooking peanut brittle. The main difference here is that when it is done you are not going to want to eat it. It is mostly sugar but it tastes like crap. Ingredients, cooking spray, corn syrup, sugar, cream of tartar. You are also going to need a measuring cup, a candy thermometer, an old pot like this one and a big cookie sheet which is going to act as out mold. We are going to go ahead and just mix all our ingredients right here in our pot, two cups of water, three and a half cups of sugar, and a cup of corn syrup. Now for the last ingredient is a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar. I have no idea what this stuff is or what it does with our sugar glass but I am going to put it in. Male: Dude, what are you wearing? Eric: It is armor. I made it myself over the weekend. Male: Why? Eric: To fight a dragon. Male: There are no such things as ---. Eric: damn you, you vile mythical beast! Be strong homemade armor. Eric: Now we have got all our ingredients in there, we are start off ten and we are going to bring it to a boil. Now bring your sugar glass mix to a boil slowly. If you heat it up too fast it will caramelize. As it heats up it is going to go from a cloudy color to a clear one. Our candy thermometer kind of broke I guess. The top came off and it fell in our sugar glass mix. It fell in again. Awesome! What if that affects the temperature reading that is full of molten sugar. Probably not. We are going to pour our mix evenly as we can into our cookie sheet. As you can see there is a lot of bubbles now but those should all go away. So once it hits this cool cookie tray it is going to start to dry really fast. Now that we got out cookie tray nice and level, our glass is starting to cool. Now this is the easy part you basically just leave it for an hour and then we get to try to get it out of the pan. Start of test film Eric: Fire! Now keep in mind that sugar glass can still be a little dangerous. I cut myself at least one making this episode; also you have two weeks left to submit to the June user submitted special. If you are like me and you cannot afford to pay your actors, you better at least buy them a meal. Pizza is always good. Female: Hey I am Melissa and I am from Florida I saw your video on how to make a human size ham sandwich. It is pretty good and this is for leave a message about your first video camera and even though this was not technically mine, I remember when I was about seven, my brother would take my mom’s camera and really do not know what it was bigger than me and he was going to make little movies and stuff and he had to be about twelve or something. I remember that sometimes he would have me film it and sometimes I have to be the actress. I do not know, it was just weird but when I first heard the thing “what was your first video camera” I was like, “I never had one” but you know it was pretty cool reminding me of this.