The Science of Candy: Sugar Chemistry - Chemical Safety Facts (2024)

FAQs

When making hard candy, the ingredients are heated to a boil then to 300 o'F. What is the purpose in heating the candy to this extreme? ›

To make rock candy, we initially used more sugar than could dissolve in water at room temperature (three cups of sugar for one cup of water). The only way to get all of that sugar to dissolve is to heat up the water, because increasing the temperature causes more sugar to dissolve in water.

The Sweet Foundation: Sugar and Syrup

At the heart of almost every candy recipe lies sucrose crystals, making sugar the main ingredient. Complementing sugar is syrup, often derived from starch sources like corn or tapioca. This combination of sugars provides a stable and flavourful base for a variety of candies.

Heating up the solution forces the sucrose molecules to break up and caramelize. But when we do that, the sugar molecules really want to crystallize back into their solid form. Candy-makers use that crystallization process, and some strategic interference, to create the candies that we know and love.

Hard candy in hot water should dissolve faster than in cold because the molecules of hot water are moving faster and hit the candy more often and harder than in cold. That makes the water molecules knock the molecules of the pieces of candy off faster.

The simple answer is that there is too much moisture in your candy. One or more factors could be contributing to this problem.

Artificial Colors, Flavors, and Sweeteners. Preservatives – including: sodium benzoate, sulfites (sulfur dioxide), polysorbate 60, 65 or 80, nitrites, TBHQ, and BHT/BHA. Gluten – may be listed as maltodextrin, modified food starch, caramel coloring or flavoring, citric acid, and “natural flavorings”

The process of making caramel (sugar candy) is a chemical change. When making caramel, sugar is heated until it decomposes and forms a new compound with different properties. This is a clear example of a chemical reaction because an entirely new substance (caramel) is created from the original substance (sugar).

In addition to traditional ingredients, like chocolate and sugar, you may notice Red 40 or Yellow 6. These are the dyes that give the candies their colors. By using a process called chromatography, you can determine which dyes were used to make the different candies.

To make candy, sugar is first heated to a high temperature so that it melts . The scalding solution is then then cooled into a solution that is supersaturated. The supersaturation is considered unstable, forcing the sugar molecules to crystallize into a solid.

Once a tiny crystal forms, it serves as a nucleation point. Other sugar molecules then glom on to it and make the crystal bigger. Seed crystals in the rock candy mix serve as this nucleation point, making the rock candy form faster.

How do sugar crystals grow? ›

The sugar crystals form because the water and sugar mixture is supersaturated. This means it contains more sugar than can be dissolved in the amount of water. Imagine lots of tiny sugar molecules moving around the water bumping into each other and sticking to each other.

Did you know that most types of candy are made of sugar from two kinds of plants: sugar cane and beets? The common form of sugar is called sucrose (C12H22O11), a molecule made up from glucose and fructose (see front cover).

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.

The final outcome of the candy depends on the sugar concentration or the syrup. Higher temperatures with greater sugar concentrations usually result in hand candies, whereas, lower temperatures result in softer candies.

Hard-boiled candies production:

For this, cooking temperatures could be as high as 155°C at atmospheric pressure or lower if the cooker is equipped with a vacuum chamber. It is then cooled down to reach 105°C to 90°C before the addition of flavor, color and acids.