Processing Methods and Technical Key Points of Ginger Juice Hard Candy
Hard candy is the densest type of all candies. The specific gravity of general hard candy is between 1.5 and 1.6. Hard candy currently sells poorly in the candy market, but if improvements are made in variety and flavor, it has great prospects. Ginger juice hard candy is rarely seen on the market, and its processing technology is as follows:
1. Raw material processing: Use tender ginger or a small portion of old ginger, wash clean, peel and crush, then put into a pulping machine to make pulp, press and filter to obtain ginger juice for later use.
2. Production process using atmospheric pressure boiling to make hard candy:
(1) Sugar boiling: More than 97% of hard candy is sugar. The sugar composition includes two types: one is granulated sugar, and the other is starch syrup. The ratio of the two is 75-80:25-20. The role of starch syrup in hard candy is to resist crystallization. Granulated sugar needs to be dissolved by adding water, so ginger juice is used instead of water and added to the granulated sugar to be boiled together with the starch syrup, gradually becoming sugar paste. At a high temperature of about 160°C, the concentration is very high and the moisture content is extremely small.
(2) Adding auxiliary materials: During the hot sugar process, coloring agents and seasonings such as citric acid should be added. For ginger juice hard candy, lemon yellow coloring should be added and mixed evenly with the sugar paste.
Ginger juice granulated sugar formula: granulated sugar 23 kg, starch syrup 16 kg, ginger juice 10 kg.
(3) Sugar paste cooling: The purpose is to transform the sugar paste from a highly fluid liquid state to a semi-solid state lacking gas fluidity, so that when the sugar paste is cooled on the cooling table to a certain degree, that is, when the temperature of the sugar paste drops below 100°C, the cooling rate is controlled, and the cooling endpoint must not be lower than 80-90°C.
(4) Forming: There are many forms of hard candy. One forming process is mechanical stamping, and the other is mold firing.
(5) Packaging: After forming, the candy pieces still need to be sorted. If not packaged, the surface of the candy pieces will become sticky, cloudy and deliquescent in the air. At present, single-piece packaging has the best effect.
Moisture content is an important indicator among the quality indicators of hard candy. It is not only a mark that distinguishes hard candy from other candies, but also an important mark of stable quality. The most suitable moisture content is 1-2%, and it should not exceed 3%. This product is distinguished from general hard candy by its ginger spicy flavor.