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Overview of sugar confection - Boiled sweets & Fondant boiled sweets
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Wednesday, 14 April, 2021, 15 : 00 PM [IST]
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Deepak Purohit
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Sugar confectionery is rich in sugar or any sugar or type of sugar. There are two types of sugar confections: Boiled sweets and Fondant Boiled sweets ‘boiled Sugar and water boiled at such a high temperature (150–166 °C) that practically no water remains and a glassy mass is formed on cooling’ whereas fondant has been defined as Minute sugar crystals in a soaked sugar syrup; used as the creamy stuffing in chocolates and biscuits and for decorating cakes. Its get prepared by boiling sugar solution with the inclusion of glucose syrup and cooling quickly while stirring.
Sugar confectionery can be neatly divided into those products that are planned to crystallise and those that are not, and it shows that the different sugar to glucose syrup are ratios for a number of different products. In products that are planned to crystallise there is a high ratio of sugar to glucose. While in those products where crystallisation is nasty there is a much lower ratio. Where crystallisation has appear, the solid and the liquid phase will have different make up. The factors that control the susceptibility to crystallise are the sucrose to glucose syrup solids ratio, the total solids and the temperature.
Boiled sweets are often mentioned to as hard-boiled since they are characterised by the sugar being in the glassy state. Products comprise fruit drops, acid drops, barley sugars, hard gums, toffee, butterscotch, and caramel. The presence of crystalline product is seen as a flaw and is referred to as graining. In fondants, the sugar remain in its crystalline state. Product examples are chocolate centers, fudge, marzipan, coconut paste, and chews. existence of glassy material is seen as a flaw causing hardness. Ripening is occasionally required.
Before sugar was willingly available in the ancient western world, confectionery was form on honey. Honey was firstly used in China, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome to coat fruits and flowers to conserve them or to create sweetmeats. Between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, the Persians, accompanied by the Greeks, made contact with the Indian subcontinent and its ‘reeds that produce honey without bees'. They adopted and then roll out sugar and sugarcane agriculture. Sugarcane is native to tropical Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
Confections are describe by the presence of sweeteners. These are mainly sugars but it is possible to get sugar-free candies, such as sugar-free peppermints. The most usual sweetener for carrying both glucose and fructose. Hydrolysis of sucrose gives a blend called invert sugar, which is sweeter and is also a regular commercial ingredient. Finally, confections, mainly commercial ones, are sweetened by a diversity of syrups obtained by hydrolysis of starch. These sweeteners comprise all types of corn syrup.
Baker’s confectionery comprises sweet baked goods, mostly those that are served for the dessert course. Baker’s confections are sweet foods that mark flour as a main ingredient and are baked. Vital categories include cakes, sweet pastries, doughnuts, scones, and cookies. In the Middle East and Asia, flour-based confections prevail. The meaning of which foods are ‘confectionery’ v/s bread' can differ based on cultures and laws. In Ireland, the definition of ‘bread’ as a ‘staple food' for tax purposes needs that the sugar or fat content be not more than 2 per cent of the weight of the flour, so many products sold as bread in the US would be serve as confectionery there.
Sugar confectionery needs, self-evidently, sugar. Sugar is a chemical element of foods that the human tongue finds extremely agreeable and the body recognises as energising. However, for most of human alive, the pleasure and stimulus of sugar was limited to the irregular availability of honey and of date and fig syrups or to the fortunate few. This all changed with the growth in the 16th and 17th centuries of the sugar company and the ‘Triangular Trade', which made sugar and rum available to Europe, firearms, cloth and salt to West Africa, and thrall to the West Indies.
There is a great scope of sugar confectionery, with its own lengthy and tangled history, and with a spectrum of products that cross accurate classifications. In many cases bubbles contribute inconspicuously but highly, forming only a little percentage by volume but imparting opacity or texture that quite convert the product from its unaerated equivalent. In other cases the high degree of aeration is obvious and indeed a defining characteristic.
(The author is owner of 36Lebzelter)
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