madame leota and her crystal ball

Right about now, we are all wishing for a peak into the future…whether it is a look into what will happen after the election, or when covid will leave us all alone.  I think the future is much easier to deal with this year if it comes in cookie form- enter (floating) these Madame Leota fortune telling cookies!  At this point, even if we knew the future, I’m inclined to think not very many of us would believe it, so might as well spend some time making fun things out of sugar.  Especially since this year any big, normal Disney trips are kind of out of the question, why not bring the most elegant part of the Haunted Mansion ride to your own table in sugar form?

Speaking of making things out of sugar, sugar glass globes aren’t all sweetness and globe-ishness, honestly.  They are a big pain!   While slavishly watching How to Cook That with Ann Reardon (who is like a magical, scientific cooking elf with an Australian accent who debunks, experiments and makes all the crazy food trends you see on Instagram for her husband Mr. Nye.  Just kidding, I have no idea if she is with Mr. Nye, but they would make an amazing couple.  I might need to burn some nuts about that one!) I noticed even her sugar globes crack from time to time.  Mine did about 50% of the time, these are temperamental, sharp, exploding things, much like the future! 

Follow the broken glass recipe, but let the sugar cool 15-20 degrees before pouring it over a large, helium safe balloon filled with water.  You have to use helium grade balloons, you must fill them up and make sure to release any air bubbles and then you must say a prayer to the sugar gods.  If not, expect an exploding balloon once the hot sugar syrup is poured.  This happened a couple times to me, and it really isn’t as scary as I feared. Annoying, wet and loud, yes. But scary? No.  To make a nice crystal ball shape you need to make sure your water filled balloon easily hangs over the edge of your prop-cup where it is placed to cool off and harden.  If the balloon is not hanging over the edge the extra sugar will harden along the rim of the cup making removing the crystal ball and balloon nearly impossible.  If you pour too fast, or with sugar that is too hot still, it will slide off the top of the balloon and ripple.  If you look at it the wrong way it will get mad at you and get stringy, just kidding, that happens if you pull you sugar stream around and it cools too much while pouring down.  Luckily, sugar, water and corn syrup and time are all the recipe really needs, so if you become obsessed with getting a perfect sugar glass crystal ball it is do-able.  You can add any food colors you like to tint the glass.  I also set up my cup and balloon inside a sauce pan to catch the sugar drips to use again. 

Madame Leota is just a vodka dyed, royal icing sugar cookie.  She is set up on a large circular sugar cookie and held up with a propping cookie and some frosting.  She can be painted in any mysterious way- heavy eye make up, dark lipstick and a cloud like pile of hair.  She honestly is the easy part, the sugar glass is the part of the project that will make you want to escape into your own little crystal ball and not come out, that and, oh, the fact that the fate of our nation will be decided in, oh, about a week.  With the extra dough, I made tarot cards and crystal ball shapes.  What will be will be, focus on the cookies, is what Madame Leota would say, I think. 

After WW1 and the Spanish Flu, the world became kind of obsessed, understandably, with contacting the dead.  Clairvoyants and spiritualist literally poured out of the wood-work and were taken fairly seriously, or at least as a threat to gullible people’s pay checks.  The British government went so far as to put a very famous spiritualist on trial for revealing secret plans during WW2, Hellish Nell!   Why they haven’t made her story into a movie is beyond me- it really was eerie what she predicted, how she did it and why she kept her gross husband along for the ride- her story would make the ultimate hallowen movie.  But, for now, there is only a book, which is creepy reading, The Strange Case of Hellish Nell.  A movie that actually exists, The Clairvoyant from 1935, free on amazon prime, explores what happens with a clairvoyant actually can see the future, and what that means for those around him.  Fay Wray stars as his jealous wife (oh, his visions only occur in the presence of another young, beautiful lady…) and it is a great movie to watch while munching on Madame Leota.