What it costs to start
Updated
On this page7
The thermometer is the whole craft
Sugar stages are temperature ranges, and a thermometer reading five degrees out produces a product that is reliably the wrong texture. Calibrating it in boiling water, and knowing what boiling water actually reads at your altitude, is the first thing to do and it costs nothing.
Heavy pans, because of scorching
Sugar at temperature against a thin base burns, and a burned note does not come out. A heavy-bottomed pan distributes heat and buys you the seconds you need at the end of a cook. This is the same argument the sauces property makes about kettles, for the same reason.
A cold, hard surface
Marble or steel, for cooling and working sugar and for tabling chocolate. It is a one-off purchase that lasts forever and it is genuinely difficult to work without.
For chocolate, temperature control
Tempering by hand is possible and a tempering machine or at minimum a reliable way to hold a precise temperature makes it repeatable. This is the point where the chocolate half of the craft becomes more capital intensive than the sugar half.
Ingredients are a real cost and chocolate is the expensive one
Couverture chocolate is priced per kilogram at a level that makes a failed batch expensive, and cocoa prices move. Sugar work by contrast is cheap in materials and expensive in time, which is a very different business shape.
Packaging is a bigger share here than you expect
Confectionery is bought as a gift, so the package is part of the product in a way it is not for a jar of sauce. Boxes, inserts, ribbon and labels can approach the cost of the contents, and that has to be in the price from the start.