Carambola Candy

This product is a dry candied fruit, purely sweet in taste, and requires the salt contained in the raw material to be removed. Whether sweet or sour carambola, both carry varying degrees of acidity, and ensuring the removal of the acidity is no easy task.

The processing technique is as follows:

1. Raw material handling: Peel off the ridges of fresh carambola, cut lengthwise into 2-3 pieces, and soak in 3% limewater to neutralize the acidity. Add 1.5 kg of quicklime to 50 kg of clean water, stir, let stand for a moment, then take the supernatant liquid to treat the fresh carambola; generally soaking for 5-6 hours is sufficient, as soaking too long will turn the carambola black, which is instead undesirable. If acidity still remains after the limewater treatment, soak in clean water until no sour taste remains. Test with red litmus reagent: if it neither turns blue nor turns red but shows green (neutral), this indicates the acidity in the raw material has been fully treated. Drain the water and set aside.

2. Sugar syrup preparation: Prepare a 40% sugar solution. For 50 kg of raw material, use 35-40 kg of white sugar, that is, 35 kg of white sugar with 52.5 kg of water, or 40 kg of white sugar with 60 kg of water, to make a 40% sugar solution.

3. Sugar boiling process: Add the raw material into the sugar solution and boil together. Since the raw material has been treated with limewater, which hardens it, it will not become mushy when boiled with the sugar. As heating causes continuous evaporation of water, the raw material continuously absorbs sugar. Initially the heat should be high, but as the sugar concentration continuously increases and approaches saturation, the raw material will show a transparent texture, indicating that the raw material's sugar absorption is also approaching saturation; at this point the heat should be reduced a little to avoid the caramelization reaction of the sugar. Keep boiling over low heat until the sugar crystallizes. If a spicy flavor is desired, a spicy extract can be added to the sugar solution during preparation and boiled together; the final flavor should be sweet and spicy.

4. Special treatment: To make the sugar return evenly and the sugar crystals uniform in size, an oscillating machine can be used for treatment.

5. Drying: Bake at 60-65°C for 8-10 hours to extend the product's storage period.

6. Packaging: Seal in packaging.

This product is required to retain the carambola flavor, with added sweet and spicy flavors.