Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-07-08
CANDY.
Process of Manufacturing.-Its Adultera-
tion by Inscriptions Manufac-
tUrcrs.

The word candy comes to us from the
Arabic and Persian qand, another name
for sugar. Candy-making is a consider
able trade in itself. The census of 1880
reported 1862 confectioners. There
are eight or ten large factories in New
York alone, employing perhaps n hun
dred people each, and using hundred
barrels or more of sugar week, besides
quantities of glucose
The stick candy, which seems to
be an indigenous American product, is
of ordinary "a sugar, boiled down
with water and little cream of tartar
TO prevent crystallization. The mass is
taken in patches of about fifteen pounds
to a marble table, where it is kneaded
like bread, and the ilavoring and color
ing worked in The paste then goes TO
the ''pulling-hooks," where for live or
six minutes it is pulled and twisted and
repulled and retwsted ut the hands of a
workman who certainly earns his liv-
ing. Thence it returns to the marble
table, ut one end of which is metal
plate, kept hot, on which he works the
candy into its final shape. Stripes arc
pressed into the batch, two feet long and
twisted out till it is the proper size of
the penny stick the right length of
which is clipped off by huge scissors.
Clear candy is not kneaded or pulled
Flat candy is run into pans, and knife
is run across where it is to be broken in
to sticks or squares. The drops, fishes,
and other fancy shapes are made by
passing the paste through machine,
which cuts and presses it to the proper
size and shape.
Lozenges are rolled out like pie-erust,
sometimes printed in carminc with
hand-stamp. and then cut out with dies.
"Sugar-plums' and sugared almonds
are made in very interesting way, by
throwing the nut, seed, or other nucleus
with boiling sugar into great copper
pans, which are shaken by hand or
reyolved by machinery over hot fire.
Rolled over and over in the moist sugar,
the plums soon begin to grow, and are
polished off, by each other, while,
above, steam-worked fans carry off the
dry dust Gum drops are made of gum
arabic and sugar, boiled and mixed,
seven or eight hundred pounds at
time, in huge copper steam-kettles,
whence the mixture is taken ont into
smaller kettles to be favored and color
ed, The cheap gum drops and s'marsh-
malloWs" are now made chiefly from
glucose. Cream or soft candies are
made IN simple way, from sugar mix
ed with cream of tartar to prevent crys-
tallizIng To give them their fancy
forms, fiat tray is filled with starch,
which Is pressed into moulds by a series
OF plaster-of-Paris models-a drop, hand,
face, berry, or what it may be--arrang-
ed on q long stick. Into these starch
moulds the hot cream is poured, and
then allowed to dry. Some factories
have as much as $4,000 pounds of starch
In this use. The drying-room is kept at
a high temperature. in which the
creams soon become dry and solid.
They are then separated from the starch
by huge sieves. If they are to be gloss
cd, they are placed in huge tin pans
ana cold solution of sugar poured
over them TO stand over night In the
morning the ice of sugar on top is brok-
en-, and the creams are found coated
with line crystals. The liqueur drops
are very curious product. The syrup
IS mixed with brandy or favored water,
and is poured into the starch moulds.
As it cools at the top and on the mould,
the crystal makes q continuous case, inn
prisoning the liquor within.
The adulteration of candy is chiefly
by the use of terra alba, or white clay.
This harmful stuff can be detected by
dissolying the suspected candy in water,
when the clay falls to the bottom undis-
solved An ounce roll of cheap lozen-
ges viii sometimes contain three
quarters of an ounce of this injurious
stuff. The coloring of candies is, for
the most part, not dangerous, since a
piece OF red coloring the size of gum
drop viii color 5000 pounds of candy.
Unscrupulous manufacturers, however,
sometimes use mineral instead of the
safe vegetable colors, and cart-loads of
such candy have been seized and de-
stroyed by the health officers in New
York. For the most part, carmine and