How to make panoramic sugar eggs for Easter

Making panoramic sugar eggs was one of Barbara Landman's favorite Easter pasttimes. It was taught to her in the 1970s by her aunt. She made them for her family and herself and then began to sell them in her former restaurant, Café Pierremont.

But the death of her husband in 2012 left Landman reeling and she lost the passion for making the sugary egg-shaped sculptures.

“My husband passed away in 2012, and I just couldn’t get interested in doing them," said Landman.

This year, Landman — who now owns Catherine's Eatery in downtown Shreveport — made a major step in embracing the craft that once gave her joy.

"I thought, 'This year, I’m going to do them,'” she said.

She rediscovered her passion for making the eggs and found the process to be peaceful and almost therapeutic. 

“I truly love doing these,” said Landman. “I could do these all year long if the people I work with would let me.”

These ornamental eggs are made of sugar and water and decorated with royal icing. Their hallow interiors depict scenes  often ranging from a religious nativity to a whimsical Easter bunny, chicks or tiny eggs.

Landman has returned to selling them in her restaurant, and earlier this year spent time in Lafayette helping her cousin, Mary Landry-Hopkins, create her egg inventory to sell at her antique shop, Renaissance Market.

The assistance was much needed and appreciated as the demand grows higher as Easter approaches on March 27. The women said they're in high demand because they’re one-of-a-kind, handmade and rare.

“You can’t buy them in a normal store. They don’t exist,” said Landry-Hopkins. “You might be able to find these tiny ones that are the size of golf balls and you might be able to find some factory-made mass produced. But to find them in the capacity Barbara and I are doing, I don’t know of a place that’s doing them.”

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Breaking a few eggs

The first step in making the panoramic eggs can be a tedious one. 

“It’s very laborious, and it takes a lot of time to make them,” said Landry-Hopkins. “You’re talking about a good hour and a half per egg, but it goes in stages." 

To make the shell, sugar is mixed with water and food coloring and packed into the egg-shaped plastic mold and set for several hours to dry. The shell then is popped out of the mold and several more hours of drying is required before the shaping and decorating can begin.

The designer also must account time for errors — more time could be needed if the fragile sugar shell breaks.

A fair amount of space also is needed to lay each mold out for drying, as well as needed space to decorate. 

Even the decorating is an intricate process to make the royal icing — made of egg white, powdered sugar and water — and add gum-paste flowers.

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Designers have to come up with something creative and unique from choosing colors, styles and the deciding what to put inside the egg. Landman and Landry-Hopkins work with buyers to customize eggs with special memorabilia figurines or color and style specifications. 

"I’ve gone through about 150 pounds of sugar — That’s a lot of sugar,” said Landman. “But they’re fun and they make me happy.”

So far, Landry-Hopkins has made about 50 eggs and Landman will have made about 70 eggs by the end of the season.

It may take a while to make them, but it’s worth it to see and hear the customer’s reactions. Landman said customers are always amazed.

One tough egg

The craft has become a family tradition every Easter since the early 1970s.

“We always had them growing up,” said Landry-Hopkins. “My mother, Bootsie John Landry, made them and she’d put them out every year.  I still have some of the ones she and my brother made that are 30 something years old.”

It was Hopkin’s mother who first taught Landman the technique in the 1970s. Landry-Hopkins learned about seven years ago.

The cousins aren’t sure of how far back the panoramic eggs date, but believe it originated in Europe. Landry-Hopkins adds her own touch of history to her modern day eggs with the figurines inside.

“When we go to the south of France to buy our antiques we buy the little people that were in the nativities and that they use in their King Cakes,” she said.

The average starting price for Landry-Hopkins’ eggs is $55.  The price can go up depending on the added antique features.

Throughout the year, she searches the antique circuit for tiny porcelain people, rabbits, wheel barrows, wooden crosses and other small figurines representing the spring or Christianity to decorate the inside and outside of the sugar eggs. 

“My mother and my brother made them when I was growing up just as a hobby, something they’d learned from a friend of hers,” said Landry-Hopkins.

And Landry-Hopkins uses her mother’s original plastic egg-shaped mold to make 5 ½ inch-wide and 6 inch-tall dioramas. Landman carried on the tradition in Shreveport using molds that are about half that size.

The eggs are decorative only, although made from edible ingredients. Once dried they take on a hardened sculpture form. And unlike a real egg, these eggs are pretty durable. If cared for and stored properly — wrapped in cellophane inside a box and stored them in a high, dry place — they can last for decades.

Shelling out the knowledge
The making of the panoramic egg is a valuable and special process for the cousins.

For Landry-Hopkins, the eggs represent passing down the knowledge and tradition to family members to continue. Only a few other family members have learned and help to produce them each season. Landry-Hopkins and her mother also taught a few employees to assist with high demand of the eggs before Easter.

And her nephew is teaching his young son how to make the sons.

Her mother is now deceased, but Landry-Hopkins gifts one of her mother’s original eggs to each child born into the family as a way to give a piece of her memory and carry on the family tradition to the next generation. 

“This is not a money making thing for us although they are expensive, but it’s more about keeping my mother’s tradition alive and it’s unbelievable to hear the people’s reaction when they come into our shop,” said Landry-Hopkins. “It’s about memory and tradition.”

If you buy
Where: Catherine’s Eatery, 420 Marshall St, Shreveport
Hours: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday - Friday
Cost: $30
Info: Available until March 24
catherineseatery.com
Where: Renaissance Market, 902 Harding Street, Lafayette
Hours:10 am to 5 pm Monday - Friday; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $55 and up
Info: renaissance-market.com

Recipe provided by Barbara Landman

Panoramic sugar eggs 

(makes three eggs)

Ingredients:

5 pounds of sugar

1/2 cup water

Food coloring (recommended: Wilton's Icing Colors

Plastic egg-shaped mold that opens vertically

Hot glue gun

Pastry icing bag with star-tip

Instructions:

1. Mix ingredients until colors are even.

2. Pack into both sides of the mold evenly.

3. Once packed, turn over and release sugared shells onto a flat surface, such as a plate or tray.

4. Cut opening at pointed top of the egg about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in.

(Tip: Use a firm, straight playing card. Leave playing card covering the cut opening so the inside of the egg doesn't dry out.)

5. Let outside dry for 4 to 5 hours.

6. Carefully pick up the egg shells and scoop out the inside of the top and bottom.

7. Let molds dry for about 2 hours.

8. Use hot glue gun on inside and place grass, figurines, etc. in desired positions.

9. Use a hot glue gun to adhere the top and bottom of the sugar shells together.

10. Pipe Royal Icing around the seam using a star tip on a pasty icing bag.

Royal Icing for outside decorations:

Ingredients:

1 pound powered sugar

3 tablespoons meringue powder

6 tablespoons warm water

Instructions:

1. Beat ingredients together for 7 to 10 minutes on medium speed until icing forms stiff peaks.

2. Separate into desired amounts and add food coloring of choice.

3. Put into pastry icing tube and decorate shells as desired.