{
    "id": 1070774,
    "title": "How are sweets made?",
    "slug": "how-are-sweets-made",
    "type": "page",
    "url": "https://sweeties.net/wiki/how-are-sweets-made/",
    "modified": "2026-09-26T02:43:18+01:00",
    "excerpt": "Most sweets start as sugar syrup boiled to a set temperature, from about 112°C for fudge to 160°C for hard sweets. The stages, the methods and some history.",
    "content_text": "Almost every sweet begins with sugar dissolved in water or milk and boiled into a syrup. As it boils, water evaporates and the sugar becomes more concentrated. How far the cooking goes, and what happens afterwards, decides what kind of sweet you get.\nThe sugar stages\nEach boiling temperature matches a particular sugar concentration, so sweet makers use temperature to know when to stop. Higher temperatures give harder, more brittle sweets; lower temperatures give softer ones.\n| Stage | Temperature | Sugar concentration | Used for | |---|---|---|---| | Thread | 110 to 112°C | 80 per cent | Syrup | | Soft ball | 112 to 116°C | 85 per cent | Fudge | | Firm ball | 118 to 120°C | 87 per cent | Soft caramels | | Hard ball | 121 to 130°C | 90 per cent | Nougat | | Soft crack | 132 to 143°C | 95 per cent | Salt water taffy | | Hard crack | 146 to 154°C | 99 per cent | Toffee | | Clear liquid | 160°C | 100 per cent | Hard sweets | | Brown liquid | 170°C | 100 per cent | Liquid caramel |\nThe names come from the old test, used before thermometers were affordable: a drop of syrup in cold water forms a soft or hard ball, or threads that bend or snap. Above about 171°C, sugar breaks down into simpler sugars and turns into amber caramel.\nGlassy or grainy\nWhat happens as the syrup cools matters too. Hard sweets are non crystalline: the sugar sets like glass, with no crystals. Sweets such as fudge and fondant are crystalline: tiny sugar crystals give them a creamy texture that melts in the mouth or is easily chewed. Edinburgh rock, left to turn sugary, is a good example of the difference: see why does Edinburgh rock crumble?\nThe main methods\nBoiling and pulling. For boiled sweets, rock and humbugs: see how are boiled sweets made?Starch moulding. Hot jelly mixtures are poured into shapes stamped in trays of starch, a method mechanised with the starch mogul around 1899: see what is starch moulding?Panning. Centres are tumbled in a rotating pan while layers of sugar are built up, as for sugared almonds and aniseed balls: see what is sugar panning?Whipping. Air is beaten into a syrup with gelatine or egg white for marshmallows and nougat.Spinning. Melted sugar is flung through tiny holes to make candy floss: see how is candy floss made?\nFrom kitchen to factory\nSweet making grew in Britain with the import of sugar in Tudor times, and grew greatly in the 19th century Industrial Revolution. Sweets had been made by hand, at home or in small local businesses. Machines, including steam power, pushed prices down and production up. Factory work was divided by sex: men cooked and ran machines, while women wrapped, packed and hand dipped chocolates, and even the best paid women, the chocolate dippers, earned less than the worst paid male machine operators: see what happens inside a sweet factory?",
    "contentSignals": "ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes",
    "links": {
        "apiCatalog": "https://sweeties.net/.well-known/api-catalog",
        "llmsTxt": "https://sweeties.net/llms.txt",
        "mcpCard": "https://sweeties.net/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json",
        "primaryAgenticRouteAuthority": "https://sweeties.net/.well-known/sweeties-primary-agentic-route-authority.json"
    }
}