How to Make Sweet Potato Soft Candy and Key Technical Points

Soft candy is a type of candy that is soft and slightly elastic, available in transparent and semi-transparent forms. Soft candy has a relatively high moisture content, generally 10%-20%. The vast majority of soft candies are made in fruit flavors, while some are made in milk flavors and refreshing flavors. Their shapes are divided into rectangular or irregular forms depending on the molding process.

1. Process flow: preparing starch milk -- scalding the slurry -- boiling the sugar -- cooling -- molding -- packaging

2. Ingredients: 12 kg starch, 40 kg starch syrup, 50 kg white sugar, 25 g citric acid, 0.25 kg flavoring.

3. Key points of process operation:

① Preparing starch milk: For making soft candy, sweet potato starch and corn starch can be used in equal halves. If the finished product is calculated at 50 kg, use 6 kg of mixed starch, sift it, add 2.5 kg of white sugar, 12 g of citric acid and 8 kg of water, stir evenly, and heat slowly to 60°C; do not exceed 60°C.

② Scalding the slurry: Pour about 17 kg of boiling clean water into the already prepared starch milk to scald the starch milk into a paste, stirring rapidly until there are no lumps. Then add the mixed liquid of 12.5 kg white sugar and 20 kg starch syrup, which has been heated to boiling, completely dissolved and filtered, into the already scalded and evenly stirred paste in three portions, stirring while adding. Add 1/5 the first time; after stirring evenly, add 2/5 the second time; after stirring evenly again, add all the remainder the third time. After stirring evenly, the sugar can be boiled. During the processes of preparing the starch milk and scalding the slurry, pay attention to the amount of water added. If the water amount is too little, the product will be hard; if too much water is added, boiling the sugar takes a longer time, also wastes fuel, and makes the product darker in color. Because starch syrup is used in the formula, the water content in the starch syrup must be included in the calculation.

③ Boiling the sugar: Place the well-scalded and evenly stirred syrup over heat to boil the sugar, stirring while boiling, which takes about more than 1 hour. The temperature at removal from the heat is 115-120°C. It can be lower in winter and higher in summer. After removing from the heat, add the flavoring and stir evenly.

④ Cooling: There are two cooling methods: one is to spread a layer of starch on an iron plate to prevent the sugar blank from sticking to the iron plate after being removed from the heat; the other is to wipe some vegetable oil on the iron plate as a lubricant.

⑤ Molding and packaging: When the sugar blank has cooled on the iron plate to a moderate softness and hardness, it can be divided into blocks and pressed into sheets. Continue cooling until it reaches the suitable softness and hardness required for molding, then a block-cutting machine can be used to cut it into blocks for molding. Generally, it can be cut into rectangular or irregular blocks. Good-quality soft candy can be stretched to more than 12 cm. After molding and brief cooling, a powder-removing machine can be used to remove starch granules adhering to the surface of the candy blocks. Use glutinous rice paper as the inner lining, wrap with trademark paper on the outside, and twist tightly.