Freeze Drying vs. Traditional Taffy Production

In confectionary, as in so many things, there's an age-old tangle between heritage and the new, and the latest chapter in that fight is between candy makers and a new technology – freeze drying. Welcome to the world of candy. What are the textures, flavours and practices of freeze-dried candy that differentiate it from ‘traditionally made' candy? Let's explore. So read on if you're a candy fan, or if you're a future-candymaker, or if you're just hungry.

The Art of Taffy Making

Let us first consider how taffy is made in the conventional manner. Taffy is a soft, chewy, stretchy (and usually sticky) confection. It is made by boiling sugar, corn syrup, butter and flavourings into a sticky mass, like a liquid ball of sugar. The confection, this blob, is pulled and stretched until it becomes aerated into taffy. The taffy is chopped into bite-sized chunks before wrapping the chunks into wax paper – or that into big blocks with which one cuts cuds as the new-moulded sheet hardens into slabs.

Freeze Drying: A Modern Twist

This produced a new type of taffy-inspired candy. The most popular versions were a puff on the surface created by a process called freeze drying, in which an object is placed in a chamber that is super-cooled, and the water trapped inside it is removed by sublimation. Once stripped, the substance is left with a highly porous, airy structure. Applied to candy, the texture of the resulting product bears little resemblance to taffy.

Texture Tussle: Freeze Dried vs. Traditional Taffy

Freeze-Dried Candies

Freeze-dried candies come out of a treatment with lightness, and crispness, and airy texture The sugariness and flavour of your taffy dissolve into your saliva as you chew: the treat simply melts in your mouth until it's nothing, making a seemingly quiet way out of the world. Freeze-dried candies snap: their myriad textures – ice-like, light-like, crisp-like, soft-like – match unexpectedly with their myriad flavours.

Traditional Taffy

On the other hand, old-school taffy is pliable and bouncy; it's a little work to penetrate the chewy layers, and the pay-off is in the elongated chew and the way it stretches around your teeth. Classic taffy has year-round utility. It's groovy.

Taste Sensation

From the point of view of flavour, the difference between our two processes – air-drying and freeze-drying – is negligible. Once that is decided, if you like the taste of the freeze-dried candy, then you're happy. At this point, you can slacken your crossed lips and tongue, and lick your own lips again. If you like the quick mouth-burst experience, then either the air- or the freeze-dried moonrocks will give it to you. If you like the slow-release experience, then you'll have to go for taffy, the slow-chew version of the rock.

Candy Manufacturers' Dilemma

But candymakers using much-older-fashioned taffy might feel more like throwbacks to an earlier, slower era than those candymakers who use freeze-dried candies can reasonably consider themselves modern and forward-looking. And for many any candy company, hanging onto their base of old-fashioned tastes means stretching far beyond those tastes to satisfy a range of ever-changing and even more fickle yen.

The Verdict

For me, the choice is really not hard: it depends on which of the two candies is the treat. It's a battle that will never end. There are no winners. On one basket sits a bag of freeze-dried candies, whose dry, airy snap I might find appealing, while the traditional taffy might be someone else's favourite. However, if you have a preference, here's what we're sure of: it's from the realm of candy that is inventive, where our sweet tooth's predilections are increasingly less constrained by tradition.

FAQs

1. As a bit of karmic compensation, surely freeze-dried candies are healthier for an old man than taffy because they contain less moisture.

Some people believed that freeze-dried candies are more healthier than regular taffy because freeze dried candies aren't as moist as regular taffy. However, while freeze dried candy might have a lower percentage of water, both candy's main ingredient are still pieces of sugar, and adults or even children must know how to eat them in moderation.

2.Its a matter of tissue water if freeze-dried candies taste better longer than taffy?

Yes, they last longer and remained favourite due to the low moisture.

3. Is there a home technique for producing freeze-dried candies?

It might be possible to make them at home, but it certainly requires special equipment; in that respect, it seems quite a bit more involved than the kinds of sweets you make by hand in a normal kitchen – say, taffy.

4. Will eating something through a straw irritate any food allergy?

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Like taffy, candies are not usually allergen-free. Some freeze-dried candies contain nuts, dairy or gluten. Check the packaging.

5. Will freeze-dried candies and taffy freeze out each other in recipes?

Not so. Combine the two in a recipe, and you might just come up with a whole new way to make a dessert: a textural and flavourful mash-up that knocks the socks off your dinner guests.