{
    "id": 1070871,
    "title": "How are chocolate buttons made?",
    "slug": "how-are-chocolate-buttons-made",
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    "url": "https://sweeties.net/wiki/how-are-chocolate-buttons-made/",
    "modified": "2026-09-26T14:36:49+01:00",
    "excerpt": "Chocolate buttons are tempered chocolate dropped in small, measured blobs onto a moving belt, where they spread into discs and set in a cooling tunnel.",
    "content_text": "Chocolate buttons are flat, round discs of chocolate, and they are made in a simple way. The method is called depositing, and the machines that do it are known as drop lines.\nHow they are made\nThe Turkish machinery maker AkayGAM, which builds chocolate drop lines, describes the process:\nTemper. Real chocolate is first tempered, so that the cocoa butter sets in the stable crystal form that gives a snap and a shine. Compound chocolate made with other fats can skip this step: see how is chocolate made?Deposit. A depositor, with heated nozzles and a heated depositing plate, drops small, measured amounts of chocolate onto the moving polyurethane belt of a cooling tunnel.Spread and set. Each drop settles into its shape. Buttons are flat discs of about 1 to 2 g each; the same line can make tear shaped drops under 1 g, or flat chips of 2 to 4 g.Cool. The belt carries the chocolate through the cooling tunnel, where it sets.Release. At the end of the tunnel the set buttons come off the belt, ready for packing.\nA single line like this can make hundreds of kilograms of chocolate drops or chips an hour.\nTempering matters\nCocoa butter can crystallise in six different forms, and only one of them, Form V, gives chocolate its snap, gloss and stable texture. Chocolate that is stored too warm or too damp can bloom, turning dull and whitish on the surface: see why does chocolate go white?\nCadbury Buttons\nCadbury Buttons were first sold in the United Kingdom in 1960, and their packets feature cartoon animals whose eyes are two buttons. Today they are made in Dairy Milk and white chocolate, as well as Giant Buttons and, from 2022, even larger Mega Buttons. In 2023 the small treat size packs stopped being sold singly in the UK, though they are still found in multipacks.\nButtons with sprinkles\nChocolate drops topped with hundreds and thousands are sold in the UK as Jazzies, Jazzles or Jazz drops, and as Snowies in white chocolate: see how are hundreds and thousands made? For a sprinkled button in our own pick and mix, see SW043, whose card shows the full ingredients and allergens.\nAllergens\nMilk and white chocolate buttons contain milk, one of the 14 allergens: see milk in sweets",
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