Paper No. 09 Paper Title: Bakery and Confectionery Technology Module No. 28 Module Title: Technology of Caramel, Toffee and Fudge 1. CARAMEL 1.1 History Initially candies of fruits and nuts dipped in honey were prepared by Arabs and Chinese. But during the Middle Ages, refined sugar of any kind was very expensive and a rare treats. By the early 19th century, Americans used sugar beet juice to make new candies and so caramels were invented in USA in 19th century. Originally, the production of caramels occurred using copper pots over direct gas flames, watched carefully by a master confectioner who used a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature, and poured out the cooling caramel batch onto a marble slab or a water-cooled table and scored it into squares. 1.2 Background Caramels may be described as “soft glasses” that are viscous in nature and contain a dispersion of milk protein and an emulsion of fat (Jeffrey, 2001). Caramel is a popular and widely consumed confection that produces images of delicious, chewy treats in the minds of consumers. Caramel may be found in a range of textures, colours, flavours and products, may be consumed alone as or in combination with chocolate, nougat, marshmallows, nuts, and other inclusions. The properties of individual caramels are dictated by ingredient formulation and processing. The best caramels are sweet and just a bit chewy. Caramel manufacturers use the term "short" to characterize a caramel that is too soft (perhaps too moist) or "long" for a caramel that is quite chewy. Caramels are softer because they have been cooked to a lower temperature than hard candies (to approximately 118°C, or the firm ball stage) and contain more moisture. Because of this soft texture, caramel may be extruded at lower temperatures which can be moulded, and put into a variety of other candies or candy bars to add flavour, binding, and texture. The action of the heat on the milk solids, in conjunction with the sugar ingredients, imparts a typical caramel flavour to these sweets. Essentially, the entire batch of candy undergoes the Maillard browning reaction. In a conventional caramelization process, the sugar syrups are cooked to the proper moisture level, added to the fat and milk, heated, and then allowed to caramelize (develop the characteristic flavour and brown colour) in a browning kettle. 1.3 Raw materials Different raw materials are used depending on the manufacturing and type of caramel under production. However, the most frequently made caramel, the vanilla caramel, contains many ingredients if it is mass-produced. The ingredients include milk, sometimes sweetened condensed milk, corn syrup, sugar, oil, whey, calcium carbonate, salt, flavour, and butter, another type of fat such as vegetable oil, molasses, and corn starch. Milk is essential to distinguish the caramel from a hard candy, and it is the milk solids that change chemically to produce the caramel. Corn syrup lends additional sweetness to the candy batch but also protects the mixture from becoming grainy, which would indicate there is too much sugar in the batch (graininess will ruin a batch of caramels). Corn syrup also lends body to the slurry. At least one fat is added to the mixture as well. Butter is often the only fat added by gourmet caramel-makers as it provides superior taste, but this proves to be very expensive for mass-production. So other fats are added along with a fairly small amount of butter. As maple caramels or other flavoured caramels are produced, the ingredients vary accordingly. 1.4 Manufacturing process There are various stages of sugar solutions which are described by solutions behaviour when dropped in cold water. Below given are the stages which are involved in the caramel production. Stages Temperature (°C) Characteristics Thread stage 110-112 Solution thicken into syrup threads when you pull a spoon out Short ball stage 112-115 Solution can be pressed to soft gooey ball. Used to make soft chewy candy like taffy Firm ball stage 117-121 Solution can be pressed into a firm ball. Used to make caramel Below given process is one of the processes used for manufacturing of caramel; however there are many different processes used in industry for the manufacturing of caramel. The process is essentially the same, as batch process-the batch is machine mixed, cooked steadily, cooled, extruded, and formed into small squares. 1. All of the ingredients listed above are automatically batched and weighed using a batching and dissolving machine made expressly for the manufacture of caramels. The liquid and the dry ingredients are loaded into the machine. Then, the ingredients are weighed with great precision by computer in the weigh tank (which may be on the upper side). The ingredients are mixed by propellers in this weigh tank. 2. After blending, this milky slurry drops automatically to the lower mixing and dissolving tank. Steam heat brings the mixture up to a pre-determined temperature. In the mix tank, gear- driven agitation equipment dissolves the ingredients thoroughly. Surface scrapers skim along the bottom and sides where burned protein solids have a tendency to accumulate. These burned solids are redistributed and mixed back into the slurry to ensure that the whole mixture is a homogeneous batch. 3. The heated mixture is then sent to the heated surge tank. An operator's command transfers the batch into a stainless steel scraped surface heat exchanger for the final evaporation. Here a small variable-speed gear motor drives a scraping system within the evaporator. The syrup is forced through a small space that is jacketed with steam, thus forcing evaporation within the mixture. 4. The batch has now had much of its moisture removed and is thickening. It is gravity-fed into a steam-jacketed caramelizing tank where the caramelizing is ensured by exposing the batch to steam. The caramelizing mixture is re-circulated from the bottom to the top of the tank, with incoming syrup mixing with the caramelizing slurry, promoting homogeneity of the product. A discharge valve directs the mixture into the next processing machine, the cooling wheel. 5. This caramel candy, now at about 116°C, has to be cooled. There are many ways to cool the caramel; including moving it into cool rooms and running it through cooling tunnels. The system described above utilizes as cooling wheel. The caramel is water-cooled on the outside surface of a large wheel that is 4ft wide and 12ft in diameter. The caramel is laid in a film about 1/8-inch (3.2-mm) thick on this wheel. The wheel completes a half turn and the caramel comes off the wheel, becoming solid and of a consistency so that the candy may be cut and packaged. 6. A batch roller takes the caramel film and shapes it into a rope. The rope is then shaped and sized into the thickness of a finished caramel. Caramels are not moulded; instead, they are shaped by being cut from the thick rope. As the caramels are cut they are automatically individually wrapped. From there, the caramels may be weighed and placed in a sealed bag and packed into cartons for shipping. If caramels are cooked to just the correct temperature, they can be shipped easily in any type of weather and will hold their shape. If they are undercooked just by a few degrees, they may do poorly after packaging and become too soft. 1.5 Quality control The machinery involved in the process of candy making is automated. The making of caramels requires precise measurements of ingredients, since too much sugar makes the candy grainy and makes it an inferior product. If there is too much moisture in the product, the caramel will be too gooey in warm weather. Too little moisture and cooked at too high a heat, and a "long" or chewy caramel is the result. So, the machinery must be very carefully checked and calibrated for accuracy in the mixing and weighing of materials. Insufficient mixing while cooking may lead to either of two predominant tastes - a 'grittiness' due to the proteins not being evenly dispersed or an 'oily' taste if the fat was not fully emulsified. The type of cooker used may greatly affect the product made relative to shear rate, cooling time and mixing efficiency. Temperature controls, too, must be extraordinarily accurate, since just a few degrees can affect the consistency of caramels. Human operators on the floor use their eyes and hands in order to maintain quality. Master caramel-makers are essential to the production of gourmet caramels, made in smaller batches at a time. Their experience can detect any slight variation that may result in an inferior batch just by the look, smell, and feel of the batch. As with all food manufacture, the quality of all consumable ingredients must be checked for quality. Corn syrup must be of the high quality needed for this candy manufacture. All other ingredients must be tested for quality as represented by the suppliers. It will be obvious that judgment and consistency of product quality depended totally on the skill of the confectioner. 2. TOFFEE 2.1 Introduction Toffees are high-boiled products containing brown sugar, glucose sugar or invert sugar and fats, usually butter. These products have moisture level less than 5%. Most toffees are chewable rather than glassy. Toffees have lower moisture content than caramel and having harder texture. As toffees normally have dispersed fat in them, they are emulsions. Toffees are nearest the oil-in-water category of emulsions since water itself is only a minor constituent of a finished toffee; the continuous phase of a toffee is a sugar and glucose syrup mix.