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February is a month of clelebrations with sweets and all things nice. But after feasting on candy on New Year’s and Valentine’s, have you ever wondered what goes into the yummy delicious candy?

Well, candy is made of supersaturated sugar or sucrose.

When you cook up a batch of candy, you cook sugar, water, and various other ingredients, (depending on the flavour of the candy) to extremely high temperatures. At these high temperatures, the sugar remains in solution, even though much of the water has boiled away. But when the candy has been cooked and begins to cool, there is more sugar in solution than is normally possible. The solution is said to be supersaturated with sugar.

Supersaturation is an unstable state. The sugar molecules will begin to crystallize to solid . Stirring or jostling of any kind can cause the sugar to begin crystallizing.

The fact that sugar solidifies into crystals is extremely important in candy making. There are basically two categories of candies – crystalline candies (candies which contain crystals in their finished form, such as fudge and fondant and noncrystalline candies (candies which do not contain crystals, such as lollipops, taffy, and caramels).

The ingredients and procedures for noncrystalline candies are specifically designed to prevent the formation of sugar crystals, because they give the resulting candy a grainy texture.

Here are more books about candy that you can check out!

All Rights Reserved, Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley Pub., c2005
Candy making for dummies by David Jones
Publisher: Hoboken, N.J. : Wiley Pub., c2005
Call No.: English 641.853 JON -[COO]
Click here to check for item availability

All Rights Reserved, Portland, Or. : Collectors Press, c2003
Candy : the sweet history by Beth Kimmerle.
Publisher: Portland, Or. : Collectors Press, c2003
Call No.:English q641.853 KIM -[COO]
Click here to check for item availiability

All Rights Reserved, New York, NY : Assouline, c2005
Candy by Delphine Moreau
Publisher: New York, NY : Assouline, c2005 Call No.: English 641.85309 MOR -[COO]
Click here to check for item availability

Posted by:

Ms Chen Wanying
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services