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How are sweets flavoured?
The taste of a pear drop, a mint ball or a strawberry jelly is added with great care, and often at the last minute. Here is where sweet flavours come from, when they go in, and what the word natural on a label really means.
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Flavour is what makes a sweet taste of pear, mint or strawberry rather than just sugar. Sweet makers draw on four main sources:
- Flavourings, made to taste of a particular fruit or food.
- Essential oils, such as peppermint oil in mints and aniseed oil in aniseed balls.
- Fruit esters, strongly fruity compounds such as the ones in pear drops.
- Fruit juices and extracts, used in some jellies and pastilles. Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, for example, list concentrated fruit juice among their ingredients.
When the flavour goes in
Flavours are often added late. In caramel making, vanilla and other flavourings go in only once the cooking is done, because adding them earlier would burn them off at the high temperatures. The machinery maker Loynds describes adding liquid flavours and colours by syringe to the hot boiled sugar on the slab, then folding them in. At Uncle Joe's in Wigan, peppermint oil is sprinkled onto the melted candy and worked in by hand: see how are mint balls made?
Esters: the pear drop secret
Esters are compounds that smell strongly of fruit. The pear drop's flavour comes from two of them: isoamyl acetate, which tastes of banana, and ethyl acetate, which tastes of pear. Both are used in many pear and banana flavoured sweets. Bubblegum flavour is also a blend, often including esters: see how are pear drops made? and how is bubblegum made?
Natural, nature identical and artificial
Flavourings can be natural, taken from plant or animal sources; nature identical, made to be chemically the same as a natural substance; or artificial, made from chemicals and not found in nature. Because natural extracts can be scarce or expensive, many commercial flavourings are nature identical. Vanilla is a good example: synthetic vanillin is now used more often than natural vanilla extract, and it has been made from clove oil, from wood pulp waste and from petrochemicals.
What natural means on a label
In the UK, flavourings are governed by rules that came from the EU Flavouring Regulation of 2008 and became UK law in 2021. A flavouring can be called natural only if it is made only from flavouring preparations and natural flavouring substances. A named natural flavouring, such as natural strawberry flavouring, must come at least 95 per cent from strawberries. If less of it comes from the fruit, but the fruit is still easy to recognise, it can be called natural strawberry flavouring with other natural flavourings. A plain natural flavouring can come from a mix of sources: see how to read a sweet label
Sweet, sour and salty
Under the same rules, substances that have only a sweet, sour or salty taste are not counted as flavourings. That is why the acids that make sweets sharp, such as citric and malic acid, appear on labels as ingredients in their own right: see what is citric acid in sweets? and what is malic acid in sweets?
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Questions and answers
How are sweets flavoured?
With flavourings, essential oils such as peppermint or aniseed oil, fruit esters, and fruit juices or extracts. Flavours are often added after the sugar has been cooked, on the slab or in the mixer. In caramel making, for example, adding them earlier would burn them off at the high temperatures.
What does natural flavouring mean on a sweet?
Under UK law a natural flavouring must be made only from flavouring preparations and natural flavouring substances, obtained by physical, enzymatic or microbiological processes from plant, animal or microbial material. A natural strawberry flavouring must come at least 95 per cent from strawberries.
Is sour a flavouring?
Not in law. Substances that have only a sweet, sour or salty taste are not counted as flavourings, so the acids that make sweets sour, such as citric and malic acid, are listed as ingredients or additives instead.
Sources
- Flavoring, Wikipedia
- Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008, Article 16, legislation.gov.uk
- Caramel, Wikipedia
- Candy recipe and drop roller process, Loynds
- Pear drop, Wikipedia
- Vanillin, Wikipedia
- Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, Nestlé Confectionery
Keep reading
- Questions people askWhy do pear drops smell like nail varnish?Pear drops get their flavour from ethyl acetate, which is also a solvent in nail varnish removers and glues. Same chemical, same smell. It is safe in sweets.
- How it is madeHow are pear drops made?Pear drops are sugar and glucose boiled to about 146°C, flavoured with fruity esters, then fed through engraved brass rollers that press out the drops.
- How it is madeHow are sweets coloured?Colour goes into a sweet at different stages: stirred into the cooked syrup, worked in on the slab, added in the last coats in a pan, or printed on top.
- Questions people askWhat is citric acid in sweets?Citric acid, E330, is the acid that makes lemons sour. In sweets it adds a sharp tang, and with bicarbonate it makes sherbet fizz. Most is now made by a mould.
- Questions people askWhat is malic acid in sweets?Malic acid, E296, is the acid of apples and rhubarb. It is sourer than citric acid, so it goes into very sour sweets, some of which warn it can sting.
- Diet, allergens and labelsHow to read a sweet labelWhat each part of a sweet label means: ingredients by weight, allergens in bold, E numbers, the nutrition table, legal warnings and when there is no date.