Do you have a sweet tooth? Or maybe you just love confectioneries. There are so many kinds of candies we can choose from. Different kinds of candies are prepared differently.
Hard candies are also called boiled sweets. These candies are made from boiling syrups to 160°C. Our kettles at home cannot reach that temperature. It is very hot! When it cools down, it becomes hard candy. Different kinds of hard candy are made by boiling the syrups to different temperatures.
Do you like jelly beans? They are so colourful and sweet. Jelly beans are made up of a soft jelly inside and a hard coating on the outside. To start, a giant load of liquid sugar is heated in a kettle to about 175°C. We also need starch. It is spilled onto a machine with big trays. A board presses down on the starch and makes little dents in jelly bean shapes. This kind of machine makes 756 jelly bean impressions in each tray!
Then a machine squeezes the sugar mixture into the molds. These are the jelly bean centres. The machines make almost a million jelly bean centres an hour. The jelly bean centres have to dry for 24 hours. During that time, they solidify and become chewier. Now the jelly bean centres are moved into spinning pans. This is also the time to add food colouring and flavours. More sugar is added to the jelly beans too. By the next day, the jelly beans have hardened. The only thing left to do is to add some wax to make it shiny.
Cotton candy is fluffy and sweet. It can also come in many colours. It is made from spun sugar. A cotton candy machine has a spinning part in the middle. First, sugar is poured into the machine. A heating component in the machine melts the sugar. The melted sugar is squeezed into tiny holes. Then it solidifies and spins in the machine. Now the only thing left to do is to assemble the cotton candy. You can collect the delicious cotton candy with a cone.
Sugar pulling creates beautiful ribbon candy. You can eat the pulled sugar or use it to decorate other confectioneries. The sugar is heated at a high temperature. Then it is allowed to cool for a short time. Now you can begin pulling and folding the candy. You will have to work quickly though, or else the candy will cool. If the sugar cools, you can reheat it. Using this way, you can make ribbons or even flowers.
Do you want to become a chocolatier? They make artisan confectionery. They have to learn many useful skills. Have you noticed that some chocolate breaks apart easily? Or how some chocolates have a certain shine to them? This is done intentionally. It is called tempering. Chocolatiers also need to learn how to sculpt. Sculpting isn't just for artists. Sweets can be sculpted into a piece of art.
Making sweets is fun, but it can also be dangerous. The boiled syrup gets really hot, and it can cause burns. Some powdered ingredients can also be bad for our health when they’re inhaled.