Have you tried the two most classic candies for the Chinese New Year?

Colorful wrapping paper, sweet taste, and candy with a festive atmosphere, how can you miss the Spring Festival? I hope you will feel happy and blessed when you eat every candy!

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While savoring this sweetness, have you ever wondered what kinds of sugar there are? How is the taste of candy created? Let's find out.

1

Where does sugar come from?

The rice, pasta and sweet potatoes we eat daily contain more glucose , while fruits and honey contain more fructose . Glucose and fructose are both monosaccharides, and the two are combined by glycosidic bonds to form a disaccharide - sucrose . Sucrose is most widely used in desserts and candies.

Molecular structure of sucrose

Source: Wikipedia

In the Neolithic Age, humans collected honey in the wild to obtain sugar, while in the modern sugar industry, sugar beets and sugarcane are the main sugar crops . Sugar beet* (Beta vugalis* L.) belongs to the genus Beta in the family Ricaceae. It is used as a raw material for sugar production because its tubers are rich in sucrose . The edible beets we usually see in supermarkets have red rhizomes, while the tubers of sugar beets are white and have a higher sugar content than edible beets. Sugar beets are cold-resistant and drought-resistant, and they like warm and cool climates and are suitable for growing in temperate zones. Therefore, they are mainly planted in the northern region of China . The Songnen Plain in Northeast China, the Hetao Irrigation Area in Inner Mongolia, and the oasis in northern Xinjiang are all major sugar beet production areas.

Sugar beet

Source: Baidu Pictures

Sugarcane is a tropical and subtropical crop that has high requirements for heat, light and water conditions. Therefore, it is suitable for growing in southern China . It is widely planted in Guangxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan, Fujian and other places. Among them, Guangxi has the largest output, accounting for more than half of the national output. In addition, the sugar yield of sugar cane in Guangxi (about 12%) is higher than the national average (about 10.59%, statistical data from 1991 to 2002). In other words, about 1 ton of sucrose can be squeezed from every 8.3 tons of sugarcane , so Guangxi is known as the "Chinese Sugar Pot". Whether in China or the world, sugarcane occupies a dominant position in the sugar industry .

Sugarcane in Guangxi

Source: China Plant Image Library Photographed by Xu Yongfu

In addition to sugar beets and sugar cane, there are many other raw materials for making sugar. For example, in Southeast Asia, people cut open the inflorescence of coconuts to collect sugar liquid, which contains sucrose. After filtering and boiling, coconut sugar is obtained. There is also a herb called stevia , whose leaves contain inulin glycosides, which are high in sweetness (about 430 times that of glucose) and low in calories. It has a good development prospect and its planting scale in China has been expanding in recent years.

Source: A shopping website

2

How many types of sugar are there?

The main component of common sugars in our daily life, such as white sugar, brown sugar, and rock sugar, is sucrose . Due to the different production processes for extracting sucrose, their sugar content and color are different.

According to the color difference , sugar can be divided into three types: white sugar, brown sugar and yellow sugar . White sugar has fewer impurities and is white in color; due to the low degree of refining, brown sugar and yellow sugar contain a small amount of minerals (calcium, iron, etc.) and organic matter (vitamin B2 and carotene, etc.), so they appear dark brown and brownish yellow.

Yunnan traditional brown sugar

Source: Wikipedia

The amount of sucrose directly affects the sweetness of sugar. White sugar has the highest sucrose content, which can reach more than 95%, followed by brown sugar, and yellow sugar has the lowest sucrose content. Because brown sugar has a special caramel flavor, it is often used to make desserts, such as brown sugar glutinous rice cakes, brown sugar steamed cakes, etc., which have a unique taste.

According to the size of the particles , white sugar can be further divided into granulated sugar, soft sugar, rock sugar, etc. Granulated sugar is like white sand, with a hard texture and distinct particles. Its sucrose content and purity are the highest among all edible sugars, and it is also a common raw material for making candies. The particles of soft sugar are finer than those of granulated sugar, with a soft texture and dissolving quickly in water. Rock sugar has the largest particles and is transparent. It is formed by cooling and crystallizing granulated sugar after dissolving, steaming, and concentrating. Rock sugar is generally used for coloring dishes.

Comparison of the appearance of granulated sugar, soft sugar, and rock sugar

Source: A shopping website

3

Traditional handmade classic candies

There are so many kinds of candies nowadays that you may be overwhelmed. However, there are always some candies that will leave the sweetest memories in your memory. Let us count those classic candies.

1. Crispy Candy

Whether it is during festivals or weddings, you will see crispy candies. One of the main characteristics of crispy candies is that they are crispy. When you bite them lightly, the candies will spread out and the fragrance will fill your mouth.

Source: A shopping website

When making crispy candies, you must first boil white sugar and maltose to obtain syrup. Only when the raw material ratio and boiling temperature are appropriate can you obtain syrup with good fluidity and low water content, which is the basis for ensuring the crispness of the crispy candies.

Part of the syrup is then added with peanut butter or jam, stirred and then stretched. Stretching means repeatedly and evenly stretching the syrup. The more pores there are in the syrup, the more brittle and easier it will break . When the syrup without any auxiliary materials is stretched, the bright yellow syrup will gradually turn white, so this step is also called "white stretching". After the stretched syrup has cooled properly, it is wrapped around the stretched candy, and a candy with a crisp center is ready. It has a smooth and hard surface, but is very crispy inside.

Handmade puff pastry

Source｜Chaozhou TV Station Good Life Everyday

There is also a kind of candy called dragon's beard crispy candy. Its production process is similar to that of crispy candy, but it is pulled more times to form finer sugar threads, so the taste is softer and fluffier than crispy candy.

Source: A shopping website

In the days when there were no machines, pulling the shortbread was a technical job, and the master needed years of practice to master the technique and make high-quality shortbread candies. For this reason, shortbread candies were once considered the most difficult candies to make .

2. Maltose

I remember when I was a kid, some time before the Chinese New Year, people would carry loads of sugar and shout to sell it everywhere. When you heard the sound of knocking sugar, you knew it was maltose.

The process of making maltose is complicated and involves many steps. The first step is to prepare the raw materials - malt and glutinous rice . The malt is chopped into pieces three or four centimeters long, and then mixed with soaked and steamed glutinous rice to ferment. The next step is to squeeze out the sugar water, that is, filter out the coarse residue from the fermented mixture, and the resulting juice is the sugar water.

Mix glutinous rice and malt together

Source: Nan'an Media

Then boil the sugar water into syrup , which is the most critical process: the heat must be controlled well, both to boil the water dry and to prevent the temperature from being too high to make the sugar sour. During this process, the color of the syrup will turn reddish brown and the texture will become viscous. After the syrup is out of the pot and cooled, it can be "beaten sugar". The so-called beating sugar is actually the same as the "pulling white" mentioned above, also called "pulling sugar".

Boil syrup

Source: Nan'an Media

After beating the sugar, you can sprinkle peanuts, melon seeds, dried fruits, etc. in the sugar ball, knead it into long strips, and finally cut it into small pieces. After dozens of processes, the sweet, delicate and chewy maltose is finally ready. The sweet taste is hard-earned.

Source: A shopping website

Although candies are good, you should just enjoy them, but don't be greedy. Excessive intake of sugar can easily cause obesity, and children may develop tooth decay. As for diabetics, they should resist the temptation of sweets.