It’s no secret that opposites attract. People with opposite personalities end up as best friends; flavors that (rationally) shouldn’t work together are absolutely delicious (sugar in your spaghetti sauce, sweet and sour sauce, etc.); dogs and cats live together in the same home… OPPOSITES ATTRACT! And this rule is the foundation for most chemical...
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Last week, you got a crash course in the main sweetener of most cold drinks – high fructose corn syrup. This sweetener is created within corn syrup through the rearrangement of ATOMS within its glucose molecules to form a different sugar molecule – fructose. And since fructose is TWICE as sweet as glucose, this...
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I’ve mentioned in previous posts that the scientific name of table sugar is SUCROSE. In addition to sucrose, there is a long list of other types of sugars each with its own unique characteristics: GLUCOSE (also known as dextrose) – Glucose is the most common form of sugar that most organisms break down to...
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There are many different kinds of sugar that are available to the cook. A simple trip through the baking aisle in your local grocery store should prove this to you: table sugar, brown sugar, liquid sugar, sugar substitute, and another well-known sweet delight… POWDERED SUGAR Powdered sugar is nothing more than ordinary table sugar...
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Last week, we looked at the basic process by which we get sugar and molasses. However, these are not the ONLY types of sugar that we tend to come across in our pantries and recipe books, is it? This week we are going to look at one type of sugar that we find in...
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After looking through my previous posts, I’ve realized that I have spent a considerable amount of time discussing everything that triggers our sweet tooth… …but I haven’t actually discussed HOW we get so many sweet cakes, candies, and drinks from that crystallized molecule that can be found in nearly every kitchen. So I would...
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One of the most frequent questions I get is, “What program do I use to make all of my pictures?” I thought I’d devote a little time to share this information with all of you. After using many photo editing software programs over the years, I stumbled upon a relatively unknown software (at the...
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You’ve learned how important crystals are to the creation of hard candies like butterscotch and peanut brittle and soft candies like fudge, but are there any times when you would want a candy without ANY crystals at all? Well, the candies I just mentioned all have one specific property about them (and it’s not...
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Let’s review a couple of things before we dive into another way to change the texture of candy. First of all, you learned the following rule in Part I of How To Teach Science With Candy: THE MORE WATER A SYRUP CONTAINS, THE SOFTER THE CANDY WILL BE This rule has to do with...
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Last week you learned that nearly all of the candy we know and love comes from a heated solution of sugar and water. But even with these few ingredients, cooks have learned how to manipulate several of the variables in the cooking of this solution. However, the temperature of the syrup not only affects...
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