Candy and the Solid State of Matter:

Connecting the Molecular to

the Macroscopic World

Richard D. Ludescher

Department of Food Science

Rutgers University
 Consider These
Kinds of Solid Candy
• Chocolate
• Hard Candy
• Gummi Bears

How are their physical properties similar?

How different?
Why?
Molecular Structure of Solid Candy

• Chocolate
– Crystalline Solid: Cocoa butter matrix
• Hard Candy
– Amorphous Solid: Sucrose solution
• Gummi Bears
– Soft Polymeric Solid: Gelatin gel
Chocolate: Theobroma cocao
?

Cocoa Liquor
Sugar
Cocoa Butter
(Milk Powder)
Fermented Roast & Chocolate
Cocoa Mill liquor
Beans

Add cocoa
Temper Conch butter, sugar,
(milk powder,
flavor)

Mold or Chocolate Manufacturing

Enrobe Process
Fermentation of Cocoa Beans
Traditional methods

Fermented
pods & beans
Milling Cocoa Beans

Traditional
Mayan tools
for milling
cocoa beans
Conching of Chocolate

The mixing
chamber
invented by
Rodolphe Lindt
originally
resembled the
spiral shell of a
conch
Melts in Your Mouth
(Not in Your Hand)

Chocolate Matrix
is Crystalline Fat
(Cocoa Butter)
Cocoa Butter is made
of Triglycerides

Tripalmitin
 Cocoa Butter Composition

• Palmitic acid (~25%)

– C16:0 16 carbon saturated fatty acid
• Stearic acid (~35%)
– C18:0 18 carbon saturated fatty acid
• Oleic acid (~35%)
– C18:1 18 carbon unsaturated fatty acid
– One cis double bond at C9
• Primarily P/StOP/St and P/StOO structures
Cocoa Butter Crystals
Proposed structures
 Crystal Forms of Cocoa Butter
Chocolate Tempering

Tempered chocolate

Cocoa butter is a polymorphic fat

It can form six different crystal structures with
different melting points and properties
 Chocolate Fashion Show
Chocolate Show New York, November 8, 2005
 When
Chocolate Goes
Bad…

Chocolate Bloom
Formation of new
crystals on surface
 Chocolate Bloom

Tempered Bloomed

Thermal abuse melts form V crystals

Liquid fat migrates to the surface where it
crystallizes into unappetizing small, polymorphic
crystals of arbitrary form
Hard Candy
Saccharum
officinarum
 Rock Candy &
Table Sugar:
Crystalline
Sucrose

Hard Candy &

Lollipops:
Amorphous
Glassy Sucrose
 Hard Candy Recipe
Sugar: 5 cups
Corn syrup: 1 cup
Water: 1 cup
Flavor: 1-2 teaspoons oil of peppermint, orange,
anise, cinnamon, wintergreen, cloves, or
spearmint, etc.
Color: 1-2 drops of food coloring (if desired)
Mix sugars and water, cook to hard crack stage
(300F), remove from heat, add flavor, mix
well, pour into molds and cool. Store in sealed
container.
 Glass Forms Because Crystallization is
Frustrated by High Viscosity of Liquid Sugar
 Properties of
Amorphous Glassy Sucrose
• Solid-like
– Hard, rigid and brittle
• Liquid-like
– Can dissolve colors and flavors
– Supersatuated liquid
• Softens at high temperature: Glass transition (Tg)
– Hard & brittle below Tg
– Soft & malleable above Tg
 Crystal: Long Range Molecular Order
Amorphous Glass: No Long Range Order
Rose Window
Notre Dame, Paris

One of the more

attractive applications
of glass technology
 Sugar
Sculpture

American
Culinary
Federation
National
Convention,
2003
 Triboluminescence
Light emission after
excitation by rubbing or
striking

Wintergreen
(methyl salicylate)
 Triboluminescence
of Sucrose
(nitrogen emission)

Absorption and
Fluorescence of
Wintergreen
Gummi Bears
Hard Jell-O
 Gummi Bear Recipe
Water
Corn syrup
Sucrose
Gelatin
Citric acid
Coconut oil
Carnauba wax
Flavors & Colors

Dissolve sugar and gelatin in boiling water, add syrup,

oil and wax, mix well. Add citric acid, juice, and
flavors and colors. Pour into molds. Cool.
Gelatin is added at levels about 6x that used in Jello.
Gelatin has been
around for millennia,
Jell-O for about a
century
Sus scrofa
The source of most
food gelatin
Jell-O is a Gel: A 3-D Polymer Network
 Gelatin
Triple Helix

The Physical
Crosslinks in a
Gelatin Gel