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 MEET
BAKING911.COM'S CANDY CONSULTANT, CHEF BARRY MARCUS:
The following interview took place between
Sarah Phillips
and Chef and Candy Instructor Barry Marcus.
He is an alumnus of Payard Patisserie, Tribeca Grill and Le Cirque 2000 in
New York City. Chef Barry Marcus studied the art of pulled sugar in the U.S.
at the International School of Confectionery Arts and in Switzerland at the
Fabilo International School of Sugar Art. I met Barry when I took some
classes from him at the
Institute of Culinary Education in New
York City. |
Remember those carefree days when you were a kid
and could buy some hard candy at the corner store for just a dime? Now you can
relive those sweet days for just about the same price.
Do you know where the word
lollipop comes from? The word
“lolly” was sometimes used in northern England to mean tongue. A
“pop” is a piece of hard candy.
And lollipops are candy on a stick that you can lick with your tongue. |
Hard candy, also called high-boiled candy, is one
of the simplest candies to make. It is composed of sugar and corn syrup boiled
with water until concentrated at
300 degrees F (Hard Crack Stage),
but some recipes may specify 290 degrees F,
which does not work as well (sugar cooked to 300 degrees F
is going to be harder than sugar cooked to 290 degrees F.)
Afterwards, the candy can easily be colored
and flavored (usually flavored oil bases,
such as lemon, orange and lime). Suckers & Lollipops, Lozenges, Jolly Ranchers,
and Tootsie Pops are favorites.
 Barry:
"I tell my students that to get really clear syrups
that harden well, during cooking I never stir and always use high heat." |
SARAH: Should the candy molds be
greased or buffed prior to use ? BARRY:
Grease either plastic or metal molds, although buffing, used in
chocolate work, doesn't really help here. Apply a thin coating of a neutral
flavored oil to metal or non-silicone plastic molds. Buffing has a minimal to
zero effect when the molds are used with sugar. Again, I can't explain the
physics, but sufficient buffing of, say, hard plastic bon-bon molds prior to
lining with *chocolate* can make or break the end result. But putting sugar into
those molds? Forget about it. No amount of buffing is going to allow hard sugar
to easily pop out of those if they aren't oiled.
 QUESTION:
I have had a hard
time trying to make hard candy. I follow the
recipe and it never hardens. After 3 days, it's a mushy gooey mess. Can
someone help me and give me some pointers ?
ANSWER:
In most cases, when this happens, the sugar solution
was not boiled hot enough and the mixture was stirred for too long after the
color and flavor were added. Here are a few helpful tips:
1. For best results in texture and flavor, the optimal
temperature to boil the sugar solution to is
300 degrees F (Hard
Crack Stage).
2. Have your flavoring and coloring already mixed in a small bowl. When
mixture has reached the right temperature, remove pot from stove, pour color
and flavor mixture quickly, stir quickly until color has even -- ONLY about
2 to 4 seconds.
3. Pour mixture in a heatproof glass measuring cup, then pour into molds.
Most of the bubbles will settle. If mixture does become to thick for pouring
you can put it in the microwave for about 5 to 7seconds to get thin again.
If the mixture gets too hard, you have to start over again! |
SARAH: What are the best molds to use
? BARRY: The best solution is to
use silicone molds. These are definitely the way to go. Nothing sticks to them,
especially fat-free stuff like sugar. No greasing is ever needed for silicone
molds when used with sugar. And, depending on the stiffness of the mold, you can
bend them after the sugar is cold, and -- voila! -- they pop right out. I've
never seen a silicone mold that *wasn't* slightly flexible.
With a metal mold and a *smooth* plastic one, you will see that the drops on the
metal bead up higher than on the plastic. On the plastic, the edges of the drop
will smear out slightly, making the drop look like a curved mound. On the metal,
the edges of the drop curve under, making the drop look like a little sphere.
This tendency of sugar to bead on metal is the same phenomenon which allows it
to release. Of course, texture of either surface due to scratching or wear will
diminish the effect.
Since surface tension increases (i.e., the tendency to spread
and adhere to other surfaces diminishes) as syrup cools, some suggest not
molding the syrup right as the pot comes off the fire, but rather letting it
cool down a few minutes first. I agree, but in the case of molded candies this
could be just superstition. I don't think it'll make that much difference, but
it couldn't hurt.
 Candy
Canes - History: The symbol of the
shepherds’ crook is an ancient one, representing the humble shepherds who
were the first to worship the newborn Christ. Its counterpart is our candy
cane (so old as a symbol that we have nearly forgotten its humble origin).
In 1670, the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral handed
out sugar sticks among his young singers to keep them quiet during the long
Living Creche ceremony. In honor of the occasion, he had the candies bent
into shepherds’ crooks.
In 1847, a German-Swedish immigrant named August Imgard of
Wooster, Ohio, decorated a small blue spruce with paper ornaments and candy
canes.
It wasn’t until the turn of the century that the red and
white stripes and peppermint
flavors became the norm. The body of the cane is white, representing the
life that is pure. The broad red stripe is symbolic of the Lord’s sacrifice
for man.
In the 1920s, Bob McCormack began making candy canes as
special Christmas treats for his children, friends and local shopkeepers in
Albany, Georgia. It was a laborious process – pulling, twisting, cutting and
bending the candy by hand. It could only be done on a local scale.
In the 1950s, Bob’s brother-in-law, Gregory Keller, a
Catholic priest, invented a machine to automate candy cane production.
Packaging innovations by the younger McCormacks made it possible to
transport the delicate canes on a scale that transformed Bobs Candies, Inc.
into the largest producer of candy canes in the world.
Today, modern technology has made candy canes accessible
and plentiful, however they’ve not lost their purity and simplicity as a
traditional holiday food. |
SARAH: Does weather really affect
making hard candy ? BARRY:
YES. I would also suggest never attempting
to make hard candies on a humid day. Many people dismiss the effect of relative
humidity in the air because it's hard to feel or see the difference between, say
50% and 25%. But the difference is dramatic. If the relative humidity is above
35% (give or take) the breakdown of the sugar begins before it is even cold to
the touch. That stickiness you feel on the surface of the hardened sugar is the
same that keeps it stuck to the mold. Either a) the room should be
air-conditioned and have a dehumidifier, or b) it should be a dry winter day.
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I recommend that you make a batch of hard candy
to learn the basic skills necessary for all the other variations. The
Basic Hard Candy recipes (Hard
Candy and
Hard Candy #2)
will produce a clear, sweet hard product
resembling one very large slab of lollipop material. It's only natural to
"spice it up" a bit by adding coloring, flavors (like butter and oils), and
pouring it into smaller molds. |
Also, letting the sugar dry for a few hours in an airtight
container with a strong desiccant is a good idea. Pure blue silica gel is the
best (not the weak kind you get from florist shops, which is a little bit of
silica gel mixed with a lot of sand). Second best is calcium chloride. The
latter is the same stuff you spread on the sidewalk in the winter to melt the
ice. Just make sure it doesn't touch the sugar. Technically speaking, it's
"edible", but it tastes awful! Very salty. Also, calcium chloride has a tendency
to become dusty. FYI, a good source of silica gel blue in a convenient packaging
is at Hydrosorbent Products, Inc.
The food-grade calcium chloride I mentioned is made by
Dow.
FYI, most hard candies these days are made from Isomalt. This is a miracle sugar
(and it *is* sugar, not an artificial sweetener, although it's classified as a
"sugar substitute" by the  FDA)
that drastically reduces sticking problems because it is virtually
non-hygroscopic. That is, the tendency of sugar to absorb humidity in the air
and turn sticky is virtually non-existent in Isomalt. The humidity has to be in
excess of 75% before it will feel really sticky. This also gives hard candies
made from Isomalt a very long shelf-life. The one down side is that it is much
less sweet than regular sucrose. Check the ingredients on a package of hard
candy. The artificial sweetener that's also in there is the tell-tale sign that
Isomalt sugar is the main ingredient. The process of making candies from Isomalt
differs in significant ways from that using regular sugar, but it's do-able.
I've tried it. You just have to add a few drops of some strong liquid artificial
sweetener (like the kind you by at the grocery store) to the syrup to bring up
the sweetness.
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QUESTION:
When I put flavoring in my lollipops it seems as though after the
first suck, the flavor is gone and I only taste sweet. What am I doing
wrong. Thanks for any help.
ANSWER: Are you using extracts or oils for the flavoring? The
best flavor will come from oils. I usually purchase
LorAnn oils from the local cake
shop or drug store (yes, I have actually seen them in the local drug store).
I usually only use a few drops of oil flavor because it is so strong. AND,
especially with the mints, like peppermint and wintergreen, be sure to turn
your head when you add it to the candy mixture because the steam will make
your nostrils run and your eyes water!!! |
SARAH:
I have seen
some hard sugar candy recipes calling for boiling the sugar at 290 degrees F and
others at 300 degrees F. Which one is right ?
BARRY: As for the temperature -- I think 300 degrees F is better than
290 degrees F (with qualifications), but certainly no higher than 300 or the
sugar starts to caramelize. This not only changes the color and the taste, but
alters it physically as well, making it less stable and long-lived. Sugar cooked
to 300 degrees F is going to be harder than sugar cooked to 290 degrees F. But
even at 300, a subtle but noticeable color change sets in. That's why I qualify
my opinion.
Assuming that the candy is dyed (most lollipops are) 300
degrees is ok if the color being added is squarely in the red family, or the
contribution to the final color of the caramel tones are not undesirable (such
as for purple or orange). But unless you want yellow to look orange or green to
look brownish, I'd quit at 290 degrees. And also (I could go on and on about
colors) color should be added *late* in the cooking process, after the syrup
reaches 275 degrees. The reason is that trace amounts of acid in food colors
tend to "invert" the sucrose, a side-effect of which is to soften it, making the
end result sticky. The longer the acid is in contact with the hot syrup, the
more pronounced the inversion.
I know it's off the subject, but one last thing on the subject
of color vis-à-vis cooking the syrup. Whether cooked to 290 or higher, the heat
on the stove must be as high as it can go. Cooking syrups as fast as possible
minimizes the browning effect of Maillard reactions(!!) (Pronounced: may-ARE).
The Maillard reactions cause proteins to turn brown in the presence of
carbohydrates. (This is what makes things like meat and vegetables turn brown
when they're cooked.) The Maillard reactions are enhanced in the presence of
heat. Since sugar has traces of protein, the less time the hot sugar is in
contact with the proteins, the less pronounced the browning effect.
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