2001 Grained and Ungrained Confections - staging.files.cms.plus.com

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Grained and Ungrained Confections Controlling the water content in finished products, both in their manufacture and on their way to the consumer, is essential for consistent quality. Examples of Jellies Figure 7 locked in place and cannot move around freely or come together to crystallize.These jellies remain uncrystallized gelatinized syrups and not grained ones.This produces the wide range of jelly confections which are another major part of our business, examples of which are shown in Figure 7. Faced with this wide variety of syrupbased confections, it is important to pick out items which are common to all of them before exploring the technology of those in which sugar crystals break up the syrup glue that binds their structures together. Common Features Syrup-based confections all contain water. For the same recipe, the higher the water content, the softer the confection. Controlling the water content in finished products, both in their manufacture and on their way to the consumer, is essential for consistent quality.This requires that we properly formulate, process, protectively pack and distribute to achieve this goal. For a normal shelf life of 6–9 months, these products must have an equilibrium relative humidity of less then 65 percent. This translates into a water activity of below 0.65. Water activity is a measure of how available the water is to bacteria, yeasts and molds to allow them to be active and propagate. It can be measured by a water activity meter. Pure water has a water activity of 1, but as we dissolve other materials in it (such as sugar, invert sugar and particularly small molecules of such things as salt) the availability is reduced or locked up and the water activity falls. We cannot put enough salt into a confection without making it inedible to get down to 0.65, so we have to rely on sugar, corn syrup and other materials (such as sorbitol, fructose, etc.) dissolved in the water to reduce the water activity down to a safe level. To do this, a total of at least 76–78 percent of these materials must be dissolved in the water (the soluble solids) to form the syrup which binds the confection together. Water activity is often confused with moisture content and total solids in the confection, but it is only those solids which are dissolved in the water that reduce water activity. This is why it is important to know the solubility of sugar (68% at 70°F), fructose (79.3% at 70°F) and corn syrup solids (82% at 70°F generally) in formulating stable confections.As you can see, it is not possible to produce a shelf-stable syrup-based confection from sugar alone. This is why we generally use corn syrup and other more soluble sugars in confectionery recipes. This is very important to understand as we move on to confections where we deliberately make sugar crystallize from the syrup binding the confections together, reducing its soluble solids. We must formulate the recipes to end up with sufficient soluble solids left in the water, after crystallization has taken place, to keep the water activity below 0.65, to produce a stable, grained confection. CRYSTALLIZATION OF SYRUPS Before reviewing specific ungrained and grained confections and their recipes and manufacturing processes, it is important to examine the key factors that affect the crystallization of syrups. ➤ 44 55 th PMCA Production Conference, 2001
Concentration The concentration of each of the ingredients in the syrup and its solubility in water at room temperature must be known. If any of them are more concentrated than their solubility, they potentially can crystallize to precipitate the excess, leaving the syrup saturated with the ingredient. Although the ingredient potentially can crystallize, it may not if its molecules cannot come together to form crystals because, for instance, a gelling agent prevents them from moving, or some of the other factors listed below are having a similar effect. The situation is complicated by the interactions between all of the ingredients, all competing for the water in the syrup.Thus it is their mixed solubility which is important to know in evaluating their ability to crystallize. For most of the grained confections we will discuss, sugar is the ingredient which crystallizes from the syrup binding the confection together, leaving up to 68 percent sugar, at room temperature, still in solution to help stabilize the product. Viscosity of the Syrup Gelling agents effectively immobilize the sugar molecules in jellies and prevent sugar crystallization from taking place.Other ingredients, particularly the long chain dextrins in corn syrup, increase the viscosity of a syrup. The higher their concentration the more viscous the syrup becomes and the more difficult for crystallization to take place. The extreme effect of viscosity is shown in hard candy where the moisture content is so low (2–3%) that the sugar in the recipe should crystallize, but the viscosity of the sugar glass is so high that it cannot. However, when standard hard candy is left unwrapped, it picks up moisture from the atmosphere. The syrup formed on the surface is lower in viscosity and sugar crys- Grained and Ungrained Confections tals can form to give a grained skin on the product. If the dextrin content of the recipe is high enough by using, for instance, a recipe with 50 percent low 36 de corn syrup in it, surface graining may not take place but the surface gets sticky. Viscosity is also affected by temperature. It increases as the temperature is lowered. If products are stored in cold rooms or in freezers, crystallization can be inhibited even though the solubility of sugar is reduced as the temperature is lowered. It is like gold fish in a fish bowl.When the water is at room temperature, the fish can swim around happily and collect together, but when the bowl is put in a freezer, the fish are locked in ice and cannot move. If we think of the sugar molecules in a syrup as the fish, you can visualize the effect of temperature on crystallization. Seeding of the Syrup Crystallization is made easier when the sugar molecules are given a pattern to follow in forming crystals. If sugar crystals are mixed into the syrup, crystallization is initiated.The more that are added, the greater the chance of graining taking place. This is similar to seeding chocolate by tempering to provide a pattern for cocoa butter to crystallize. Seeding with fine sugar crystals, in the form of fondant, is an important part of grained-confections technology. Mixing Crystallization of a syrup is helped considerably by agitation or mixing it to assist the sugar molecules to come together to form crystals. Generally the more vigorous the mixing, the faster the syrup will grain and the smaller the sugar crystals which form. Slow crystallization generally produces large crystals. Cooling and Temperature When sugar crystallizes from a syrup it ➤ It is not possible to produce a shelfstable syrup-based confection from sugar alone. 55 th PMCA Production Conference, 2001 45
Page 1 and 2: Grained and Ungrained Confections T
Page 3: If we take a simple syrup, add air
Page 7 and 8: syrup in the finished product are b
Page 9 and 10: to cool and set before demoulding,
Page 11 and 12: generally has a coarser particle si
Page 13 and 14: designed to grain — to give a sho

2001 Grained and Ungrained Confections - staging.files.cms.plus.com

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