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Boiling The ingredients for our sweets are hand weighed and stirred with long spatulas into shiny copper pans and heated over traditional open gas fires. This form of batch open pan gas/air forced draught cooking is the only real traditional method of cooking. |  |
 | Tipping Once the sugar/glucose mixture has reached hard crack, 150-154' c, it is removed from the fire and carefully tipped onto a water cooled cast iron cooling table. The molten mass spreads and fills the table with a layer of sweet product. |
Mixing The syrup mixture is left for a few minutes to cool before it is turned in with a pair of scissors and a pallete knife. The SugarBoiler then adds the flavourings plus any dextrose or food acid powders. These are mixed into the mass and kneaded until dissolved.
The batch is then cut into three pieces: a small part which will later form the white strip; a larger part which will form the centre of the sweet; and the third part, which is usually the biggest, will form the outer casing of the sweet. |  |
 | Pulling the Stripe The smallest section is then taken to a small pulling machine. This machine has rotating arms which pull and aerate the sugar mixture which then changes colour, as if by magic, to a white creamy mass. |
Striping The "stripe" is then further kneaded until soft and light. It is the added to the outer casing in the form of stripes, the number of stripes depends on the product, but it is generally between four and twelve. The art is to ensure that each stripe is uniform and identical to all the other stripes. |  |
 | Putting it Together The striped outer casing is the flipped over and the centre is rolled into a cylinder. The centre is then placed on top of the casing and the casing is then folded around the centre. This forms a giant sweet! This monster sweet, which can weigh almost 100 pounds (50kg) is carried by two people and placed into the batch roller which is heated. The batch roller has four rotating conical rollers which taper the giant sweet into a manageable size or "rope". |
Forming the Sweets The "giant" sweet is fed into the forming dye which stamps out each individual shape. At this stage the sweets are still warm and are joined together at the corners. They follow each other 'nose to tail' along the conveyor belt, onto which is blown cold air. They end up on a round carousel, cooling and awaiting to be taken to the next stage. |  |
 | Forming and Cooling The sweets follow each other 'nose to tail' along the conveyor belt, onto which is blown cold air. They end up on a round carousel, cooling and awaiting to be taken to the next stage. The sweets are sieved to eliminate any sharp edges and transferred to a wrapping machine. |
Wrapping the Sweets We have two types of wrapping machine: automatic and semi-automatic. The image alongside shows an operative feeding the machine on a semi-automatic wrapping macine. The sweets can be wrapped in cellophane, wax or more recently PVC wrapping films. However, the style is always the familiar fan tail twist wrap.
The finished wrapped sweets are then inspected and taken for packing either into jars or packets. |  |
It's a secret! You now know how to make sweets. Please don't tell anyone, it's a secret!
Why don't you make your own. Refer to the "Make Sweets at Home" section on this site. |
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