Candy in the making in Nablus 027 - Aug 2011

Ryan Berley Pouring Candy Molds CHF-First-Friday-December-2012-011

Candy making or candymaking is the preparation and

cookery Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to Outline of food preparation, prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric ...

of candies and sugar confections. Candy making includes the preparation of many various candies, such as

hard candies A hard candy (American English), or boiled sweet (British English), is a sugar candy prepared from one or more sugar-based syrups that is heated to a temperature of 160 °C (320 °F) to make candy. Among the many hard candy varieti ...

jelly bean Jelly beans are small bean shaped sugar candies with soft candy shells and thick gel interiors (see gelatin and jelly). The confection is primarily made of sugar and sold in a wide variety of colors and flavors. History It has been clai ...

gumdrop Gumdrops are a type of gummy candy. They are brightly colored pectin-based pieces, shaped like a narrow dome (sometimes with a flattened top), often coated in granulated sugar and having fruit and spice flavors; the latter are also known as spic ...

s, taffy, liquorice,

cotton candy Cotton candy, also known as fairy floss and candy floss, is a spun sugar confection that resembles cotton. It usually contains small amounts of flavoring or food coloring. It is made by heating and liquefying sugar, and spinning it centrifu ...

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

s and

chocolate truffle A chocolate truffle is a type of chocolate confectionery, traditionally made with a chocolate ganache centre coated in chocolate, cocoa powder, coconut, or chopped and toasted nuts (typically hazelnuts or almonds), usually in a spherical, coni ...

dragée A dragée ( ; ), also known as confetto (; ), malbas, Jordan almond, or sugared almond in the U.K, is a bite-sized form of confectionery with a hard outer shell. It is often used for another purpose (e.g. decorative, symbolic, medicinal, etc.) i ...

fudge Fudge is a type of confection that is made by mixing sugar, butter and milk, heating it to the soft-ball stage at , and then beating the mixture while it cools so that it acquires a smooth, creamy consistency. In texture, this crystalline can ...

caramel candy Caramel ( or ) is an orange-brown confectionery product made by heating a range of sugars. It can be used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, or as a topping for ice cream and custard. The process of carameli ...

, and

toffee Toffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses (creating inverted sugar) along with butter, and occasionally flour. The mixture is heated until its temperature reaches the hard crack stage of . While being prepared, toffee ...

. Candy is made by dissolving sugar in

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...

to form a

syrup In cooking, a syrup (less commonly sirup; from ar, شراب; , beverage, wine and la, sirupus) is a condiment that is a thick, viscous liquid consisting primarily of a solution of sugar in water, containing a large amount of dissolved sugars ...

, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to

caramelize Caramelization is a process of browning of sugar used extensively in cooking for the resulting sweet nutty flavor and brown color. The brown colors are produced by three groups of polymers: caramelans (C24H36O18), caramelens (C36H50O25), and ...

. The type of candy depends on the ingredients and how long the mixture is boiled. Candy comes in a wide variety of textures, from soft and chewy to hard and brittle. A

chocolatier A chocolatier is a person or company who makes confectionery from chocolate. Chocolatiers are distinct from chocolate makers, who create chocolate from cacao beans and other ingredients. Education and training Traditionally, chocolatiers, ...

is a person who prepares confectionery from chocolate, and is distinct from a chocolate maker, who creates chocolate from

cacao bean The cocoa bean (technically cocoa seed) or simply cocoa (), also called the cacao bean (technically cacao seed) or cacao (), is the dried and fully fermented seed of '' Theobroma cacao'', from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substanc ...

s and other ingredients.

Cotton candy Cotton candy, also known as fairy floss and candy floss, is a spun sugar confection that resembles cotton. It usually contains small amounts of flavoring or food coloring. It is made by heating and liquefying sugar, and spinning it centrifu ...

is a form of spun sugar often prepared using a cotton candy machine.

History

The technology for candy making has generally kept pace with the technology of the times. For example, when steam power became common in textile and engineering factories, steam power was also used in candy factories. Candy making and consumption increased greatly during the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

in the 19th century. Candy had previously been made by hand, either occasionally at home or by specialists in small, local businesses. Increased mechanization caused prices to drop and production to increase. In the late 19th century and especially the early 20th century, industrial candy making was almost exclusively a masculine affair, and home-based candy making was a feminine affair. Candy was considered sweet and dainty, so making it at home, giving it away to friends, and perhaps selling small amounts in the local area, conformed with the Western gender roles for women of the time. Most women making and selling candy did so only seasonally or for a little extra money; they rarely earned enough to support themselves or their families. Despite several large brands being named after women or otherwise capitalizing on wholesome, feminine, and maternal images, very few were owned or operated by women. Gender segregation also affected candy workers in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Men and boys were employed for cooking or operating machinery, putting them at higher risk of injury or death. Women were mostly employed for wrapping and putting candies in packages or for hand-dipping candies in chocolate. The best-paid women were chocolate dippers, yet the wages of these skilled and experienced female workers were almost always lower than that of the worst-paid male machine operators.

Hard candy

Hard candy A hard candy (American English), or boiled sweet (British English), is a sugar candy prepared from one or more sugar-based syrups that is heated to a temperature of 160 °C (320 °F) to make candy. Among the many hard candy varieti ...

, also referred to as boiled sweet, is a candy prepared from one or more

s boiled to a temperature of 160 °C (320 °F). After a syrup boiled to this temperature cools, it is called hard candy, since it becomes stiff and brittle as it approaches room temperature. Hard candy recipes variously call for syrups of sucrose,

glucose Glucose is a simple sugar with the molecular formula . Glucose is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. Glucose is mainly made by plants and most algae during photosynthesis from water and carbon dioxide, u ...

, or fructose. To add color,

food coloring Food coloring, or color additive, is any dye, pigment, or substance that imparts color when it is added to food or drink. They come in many forms consisting of liquids, powders, gels, and pastes. Food coloring is used in both commercial food ...

is sometimes used.

Sugar stages

The final texture of candy depends on the sugar concentration. As the syrup is heated, it boils and the sugar concentration increases as water evaporates. A given temperature corresponds to a particular sugar concentration because the

boiling-point elevation Boiling-point elevation describes the phenomenon that the boiling point of a liquid (a solvent) will be higher when another compound is added, meaning that a solution has a higher boiling point than a pure solvent. This happens whenever a non-vo ...

of the sugar solution is a colligative property (i.e., it is related to the concentration of the solution), so temperature is used as a marker for the necessary concentration. In general, higher temperatures and greater sugar concentrations result in hard, brittle candies, and lower temperatures result in softer candies. The stages of sugar cooking are as follows: The names come from the methods used to test the syrup before thermometers became affordable. The "thread" stage is tested by cooling a little syrup, and pulling it between the thumb and forefinger. When the correct stage is reached, a thread will form. This stage is used for making syrups. For subsequent stages, a small spoonful of syrup is dropped into cold water, and the characteristics of the resulting lump are evaluated to determine the concentration of the syrup. A smooth lump indicates "ball" stages, with the corresponding hardness described. At the "soft crack" stage, the syrup forms threads that are just pliable. At the "hard crack" stage, the threads are brittle. This method is still used today in some kitchens. A candy thermometer is more convenient, but has the drawback of not automatically adjusting for local conditions such as altitude, as the cold water test does. Once the syrup reaches or higher, the sucrose molecules break down into many simpler sugars, creating an

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In ...

-colored substance known as caramel. This should not be confused with

, although it is the candy's main flavoring.

Soft candy

Cotton candy

, also known as candy floss, is a form of spun sugar.Water Properties in Food, Health, Pharmaceutical and Biological Systems ...
p. 95. Typical machines used to make cotton candy include a spinning head enclosing a small bowl into which granulated sugar is poured. Colored sugar or separate sugar and food coloring are used to provide color. Heaters near the rim of the head melt the sugar, which is squeezed out through tiny holes by

centrifugal force In Newtonian mechanics, the centrifugal force is an inertial force (also called a "fictitious" or "pseudo" force) that appears to act on all objects when viewed in a rotating frame of reference. It is directed away from an axis which is parall ...

, and the molten sugar solidifies in the air and is caught in a larger bowl which totally surrounds the spinning head.The Rotarian
p. 35. After the product builds up on the inside walls of the larger bowl, a stick, cone, or hands are inserted, upon which the sugar strands are gathered. File:Cotton candy making.JPG, The bowl of a cotton candy machine File:Spinning head of the cotton candy maker.jpg, The spinning head of a cotton candy machine File:Cotton candy Μαλλί της γριάς.JPG,

being prepared

Marshmallows

Marshmallow Marshmallow (, ) is a type of confectionery that is typically made from sugar, water and gelatin whipped to a solid-but-soft consistency. It is used as a filling in baking or normally molded into shapes and coated with corn starch. The sugar c ...

s are prepared whipping air into gelatin, corn syrup and sugar. The use of marshmallow to make a sweet dates back to ancient Egypt, where the recipe called for an extract from the root of the marshmallow plant (''

Althaea officinalis ''Althaea officinalis'', the marsh mallow or marshmallow, is a species of flowering plant indigenous to Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, which is used in herbalism and as an ornamental plant. A confection made from the root since ancient ...

'') and mixing it with nuts and honey. Another pre-modern recipe uses the pith of the marshmallow plant, rather than the root. In modern times, marshmallows are often commercially prepared using

extrusion Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile by pushing material through a die of the desired cross-section. Its two main advantages over other manufacturing processes are its ability to create very complex ...

Chocolatiering

Chocolatier A chocolatier is a person or company who makes confectionery from chocolate. Chocolatiers are distinct from chocolate makers, who create chocolate from cacao beans and other ingredients. Education and training Traditionally, chocolatiers, ...

ing, the preparing of confections from

, involves the techniques of tempering, molding and sculpting. Tempering is a heat treatment method performed on chocolate involving heating and cooling the chocolate to result in desired characteristics like shininess of the chocolate or 'snap', the way it breaks. Molding is a design technique used in making chocolate pieces that are of a certain shape by taking liquid chocolate and pouring it into a mold and letting it harden.

Sculpting Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

is a type of three-dimensional artwork that may involve using molds and pieces of chocolate, and decorating the piece with designs in chocolate. File:Ei-chocolatier.JPG, A

making chocolate eggs File:0 Frameries - Chocolatier - Pâtisserie Godefroid (2).JPG, A chocolatier making a chocolate tower

Occupational hazards

Making candy can be hazardous due to the use of boiled sugar and melted chocolate. Boiling sugar often exceeds —hotter than most cooked foods—and the sugar tends to stick to the skin, causing burns and blisters upon skin contact. Worker safety programs focus on reducing contact between workers and hot food or hot equipment, and reducing splashing, because even small splashes can cause burns. Some ingredients can also irritate the eyes and lungs, if, for example, powdered ingredients are accidentally inhaled, so worker protection involves reducing exposure to potentially irritating ingredients.

Occupational dust exposure Occupational dust exposure can occur in various settings, including agriculture, forestry, and mining. Dust hazards include those that arise from handling grain and cotton, as well as from mining coal. Wood dust, commonly referred to as "sawdust" ...

reduction measures can reduce health problems among workers. Dust control measures can reduce risk of catastrophic

dust explosion A dust explosion is the rapid combustion of fine particles suspended in the air within an enclosed location. Dust explosions can occur where any dispersed powdered combustible material is present in high-enough concentrations in the atmosphere o ...

s from sugar and other ingredients in candy. Dust explosions have caused the destruction of factories and killed candy makers. Some dust explosions include the 1948 explosion of a

Brach's Brach's () is a candy and sweets brand of Ferrara Candy Company. History In 1904, Emil J. Brach invested his $1,000 life savings in a storefront candy store. He named it "Brach's Palace of Sweets" and it was located at the corner of North Avenu ...

candy factory in Chicago, in which 17 employees died, and as recently as the three sugar silo fires at Perfetti Van Melle's candy factory in Kentucky, in 2003, 2015, and 2017.

Tools and machinery

A variety of tools and machines are used in making candy, ranging from simple kitchen tools like bowls and spoons to elaborate factory machinery. Because exact temperature control is critical for some candies, a common tool is the candy thermometer. Inexpensive candy thermometers measure food temperatures up to about 160 °C, and those designed for commercial candy production may run even higher. A

starch mogul A starch mogul is a machine that makes shaped candies or candy centers from syrups or gels, such as gummi candy. These softer candies and centers are made by filling a tray with cornstarch, stamping the desired shape into the starch, and then po ...

is used in candy factories to shape soft candies or candy centers from syrups or gels. These centers may then be sent through a chocolate enrober to coat them in chocolate.

Pay

Although they are often skilled workers, candy makers are not generally highly paid. A chocolatier in the US, for example, usually earns about US $21,000 per year.