Candy Dish Blog

Not a day goes by that I don’t hear about some new study linking chocolate consumption to heart health.  No seriously, I get these daily pubmed updates e-mailed to me. They’re great. You should try them.  Oh, what’s that?  Normal people don’t read the latest scientific abstracts for fun? Oh well, you don’t need to be a nerd like me to know what’s going on with chocolate and health, as it is science anyone can bite into.

Many studies in both humans and rodents have observed lower deaths due to heart disease in chocolate consumers compared to non-consumers of chocolate.  This is an exciting and interesting phenomenon for us chocolate lovers, but certainly inspires wonder as to why this association exists.  Tons of scientists are asking the same question, hence the growing body of research filling my inbox.

Results from most studies looking at blood pressure and chocolate consumption show that flavanols (the antioxidants in chocolate) reduce blood pressure and risk for hypertension.  Studies have also found that these antioxidants fight inflammation in the heart muscles, leading to overall better heart health.  Meanwhile, stearic acid, one of the fats in chocolate, is thought to have a positive benefit on blood cholesterol levels.  These examples reflect some of the most common conclusions. However, scientists are coming up with new ideas about how chocolate might be beneficial to the heart all the time.

So when your sweetie gives you a box of chocolate from their heart on Valentine’s Day, remember it just might help out yours.

Editor’s note: Yes, we know it’s not Tuesday. In the midst of the blizzard coming through the DC area, some things slipped by us. I will continue to blame the oompa loompas until someone can legitimately point a finger my way.

Woven heart and passion fruit chocolates by jamescronin.

Ever wonder what makes chocolate taste so good? The answer, apart from chocolate’s extraordinarily diverse array of flavor compounds, is the same answer to what makes just about anything taste good: the fat. Though fat alone is usually devoid of flavor, it acts to enhance just about anything with which it is paired.

The fat in chocolate is cocoa butter. Cocoa beans are composed of 53% cocoa butter, which is separated from ground cocoa beans (known as chocolate liquor due to its liquidy consistency) by pressing through a metal sieve under high pressure. The by-product of this process is especially celebrated in the coming winter months—cocoa! After pressing, cocoa butter is then reunited more chocolate liquor and sugar to make the fabulous substance we know as chocolate.

In addition to bolstering chocolate flavor, cocoa butter is also responsible for chocolate’s unique melting profile and delightful mouth feel. Chocolate melts at precisely 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit because of cocoa butter’s elegant composition. Most fats, such as dairy fat for example, are made up of dozens of different types of fatty acids, each with a specific melting point. Think of butter melting on the stove…the clear yellow part is the first to liquefy, followed by the turbid white part. Cocoa butter is composed simply of three fatty acids: oleic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid, all with similar melting points and for this reason chocolate exhibits a very narrow melting range.

Stearic acid, one of cocoa butter’s fatty acid trio, is most definitely saturated in terms of its hydrocarbon structure but has been shown to have a neutral (and in some studies, positive) effect on blood cholesterol levels. This was a hot topic of discussion at the USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines Committee meeting last week, a meeting held every five years to revise USDA’s nutritional recommendations. The experts reviewed data on stearic acid, concluding it to be cholesterol neutral and debating the merits of a more health-oriented nutritional labeling plan.

Some of you might be thinking, “Yeah yeah, we all love fat too but isn’t it one of those no-no foods, not to be celebrated and praised, but rather avoided and renounced?” Fat is pretty much the most calorie-dense substance nature could come up with, a characteristic less appreciated in today’s food-secure environment than previous times of human existence, and as such needs to be consumed in moderation.

Furthermore, overconsumption of some fats raises harmful cholesterol levels in the blood, eventually leading to negative effects on cardiovascular health. The distinction between cholesterol-raising and cholesterol-lowering or neutral fats is usually communicated by the degree of saturation, a characteristic of a fat’s chemical structure rather than healthful attributes. Saturated fat is warned to be cholesterol-raising and unsaturated fat is lauded as cholesterol-lowering or neutral. As with many scientific communications, this is an oversimplification of the truth to the extent that it might be misleading.

However, rest assured that stearic acid, part of the goodness of chocolate, breaks the mold for this rule of “saturated fat equals bad for you.” Don’t think that a chocolate bar is going to cure you of anything more than a snacktime hunger, but don’t be afraid of it either.

Chocolate by rachel is coconut&lime.

There is nothing cozier in the winter months than the aroma of baking treats while your oven kicks out enough heat to remind you of the warmth of summer. My personal favorite smell is my mother’s chocolate chip cookies. Cocoa and chocolate are essential ingredients in any baker’s kitchen. Chocolate baked good are loved for their rich delicious flavor, but these ingredients may provide benefits beyond pure enjoyment.

Cocoa and chocolate consumption have been associated with decreased risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease, reduced blood pressure, improved immune function and better cognition and memory. The class of antioxidant chemicals that is most likely responsible for these favorable health effects are flavanols. Flavanols have extremely potent antioxidant activity and are present in the non-fat solid portion of the cocoa bean. Initial concentrations vary based on the species of bean. Normal processing into cocoa powder and chocolate typically causes degradation of a portion of these disease-fighting little molecules. Nonetheless, the final products usually still contain a healthy amount of antioxidant activity.

Recently, a study by several Hershey scientists investigated the effects of baking on cocoa’s antioxidant activity. These chocolate researchers baked a bunch of different cookies and cakes and made frosting and hot cocoa. They then measured the final amount of health-promoting activity in each baked good product and ranked them from best retention of antioxidant activity to least. Chocolate frosting won the contest, closely followed by hot cocoa. Cakes and cookies, however, displayed interesting results. Some recipes lost essentially all of their favanol activity while others retained almost all of it.

So what about these various recipes influenced the differing final antioxidant activities? The variability was attributed to the pH, which was most severely impacted by the type of leavening agent (i.e. baking powder vs. baking soda) used. Flavanols can’t survive well in high pH environments. Recipes using baking soda result in a much higher pH and greater loss of favanols, while baking powder, being more acidic, helps retain flavanol concentration. So as you select tasty-looking recipes to bake during the holidays, keep in mind those best suited to retain antioxidant activity.

Chocolate Chip Cookies by elana’s pantry.

Candy corn technology has come a long way since the 1800’s (when it was invented). Nobody knows for sure who developed the first candy corn prototype, but by the late 1800’s the Goelitz Candy Company was distributing these delicious little treats to Illinois farmers. Back then, candy corn was made by hand pouring sugar slurry into tiny triangular molds.

Today, though candy corn production is now completely mechanized, the ingredients are still pretty much the same. Candy corn is made with fondant, a special confectionery ingredient consisting of about 20% sugar and 80% corn syrup. Fondant is solid at room temperature but becomes a nice smooth fluid as it is heated because sugars are more soluble at higher temperatures. This liquidy syrup is deposited in molds as it was around the turn of the century, but the process is slightly more efficient.

Rather than using solid molds to shape candy corn into its distinctive form, the syrupy slurry is poured into indentations in a tray of corn starch. The machinery that carries out this process is called a mogul. Moguls are absolutely awesome. They pour the starch into the trays, create indentations of any shape you can imagine in the starch and deposit the candy corn batter at the rate of approximately 25,200 pounds per hour. Well, at least that is the speed of a normal-sized mogul. Supersized moguls, yes that is actually what they are called, can pump out nearly 40,000 pounds per hour. Each of candy corn’s three colors are deposited individually by little nozzles that pump the candy corn batter into corn-shaped indentations.

Once in their corn starch mold, the candy corn must dry for at least 24 hours and nearly 48 hours in climates as delightfully damp as D.C. Not only does the corn starch used in this process provide versatility of shape but it also helps pull out moisture from the candy corn batter, accelerating this drying stage. Once dry, the corn starch is blasted off the candy corn with an air hose and the candy corn is polished off, finished and ready to enjoy.

Editor’s note: According to the NCA candy corn page, George Renninger, an employee of the Wunderlee Candy Company, invented candy corn in the 1880s and Wunderlee became the first to produce the candy. The Goelitz Candy Company (now Jelly Belly Candy Company) started producing the confection in 1900.

The absolute meaning of caramel has not yet been defined by the scientific or regulatory community. Caramel, unlike chocolate, which has a very specific standard of identity, can mean very different things to different people.

The exact nature of the product varies based on the copious applications that employ its delightful characteristics; caramel ice cream topping must be able to flow while cold, while caramel candies should remain firm at room temperature. Some caramel functions best in caramel corn as a hardened shell around a popcorn center, just like I had as a kid at the circus. However, the caramel in your mocha caramel frappuccino is most functional when it mixes well with coffee.

Despite these diverse objectives and characteristics there is a unifying factor in all caramel-based snacks: the chemical caramelization process that make them all possible.

In addition to Maillard browning, the reaction between reducing sugars, such as those in corn syrup, and proteins, which produces color and flavor compounds, another reaction plays a role in the formation of caramel flavor molecules. Caramelization is the breakdown of sugar molecules at high temperatures into an immeasurable number of flavor and color chemical products. Sucrose’s sensational flavor explosion happens only upon reaching 340 degrees Fahrenheit; however this exact process of this phenomenon is, like the definition of caramel, complex and poorly understood.

More research on how sugar busts up into these delicious bits and pieces is still needed. Would you like to try your hand at it? Do your part for science. Make this recipe for homemade caramel apples, being sure to carefully watch the transformation that ensues.

Laura’s Caramel Apples

• 1 cup butter
• 2 1/4 cups brown sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 1 15-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Stir in sugar and salt and then the corn syrup, mixing well. Mix in the sweetened condensed milk, stirring constantly. Keep stirring this mixture and heat to 248 degree F. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Let the mixture cool until thick and stir for a uniform thickness.

Alternatively, you can melt a whole mess of caramel squares until they are thick enoughto stir easily.

Whichever method you use, wash your apples and stick popsicle sticks in them, and then dip them in the yummy caramel. Place the apples on a sheet of parchment paper to harden.

Caramel Apples by QuintanaRoo.

Milk is perhaps the most essential ingredient in caramel, the single element that makes it creamy and soft, chewy, rich and flavorful.

Being a Wisconsin-raised girl, there will always be a special place in my heart for dairy (and no, it is not the part that burns). I cannot remember a time that we did not have glass bottles of milk delivered to our house. Growing up in my household, not only was milk considered a health food, but so were cheese, cream cheese, chocolate milk, and ice-cream. We would never dream of drinking coffee without cream and I had never in my life even seen hide nor tail of “fat-free half and half,” surely a contradiction in terms, until I saw a certain coworker using it.

But enough reminiscing back to Laura’s weird childhood and lifelong love affair with milk, what does this have to do with candy, you are most certainly asking? Three distinct milk components each contribute in their own ways to the uniqueness of caramel; the protein, the fat and the milk sugar (lactose).

Milk protein consists of both caseins and whey proteins. Casein is responsible for caramel’s chewy texture. Upon heat treatment, the casein molecules get all discombobulated and bind up tight with one another, trapping milk, sugar and fat into a delicious gel. Whey proteins then start to react with lactose under the heat to produce the distinct color and flavor of caramel via Maillard browning (as discussed last week).

Milk fat adds flavor, softens the bite and reduces stickiness. The fat of milk is no exception to the “fat equals yummy” flavor rule and is crucial to the overall flavor of caramel. The mouth feel of caramel is positively influenced by the creamy texture of this fat that softens the caramel bite by interfering with the casein gel, as we wouldn’t want our caramel to be too chewy. Additionally, a naturally-occurring emulsifier is present in milk fat. This chemical nature of an emulsifier allows generally non-mixable substances to combine up with one another smoothly, rather than separating out as water and oil are accustomed to doing. The natural milk emulsifier keeps caramel consistently smooth.

Caramels by ruthieki.

An article published by the Associated Press this week made me do a double take.  “Study says too much candy could lead to prison” the headline called out.  What?

As is often the case with these types of inflammatory headlines, the study doesn’t actually say that at all.  But it does make an interesting correlation between adult violent behavior and overly permissive parenting styles (such as allowing children to have as much candy as they like).

The study in question was published in this month’s British Journal of Psychiatry and it does appear to suggest some correlation between frequent childhood candy consumption and adult violent behavior.  However, despite what these crazy headlines would have you believe, the study does not show and is not meant to imply that candy consumption itself leads to poor behavior.

As my darling husband always says to me when I start jumping to conclusions about any number of issues, “Remember – correlation does not equal causation.”

So just what does this study show then? 

The research is intended to illustrate that an overly permissive parenting style may create a population of adults with limited experience in delaying gratification, leading to impulsive behavior and violence.  “It’s not that the sweets themselves are bad, it’s more about interpreting how kids make decisions,” said Simon Moore of the University of Cardiff, one
of the paper’s authors.

Moore said parents who consistently bribe their children into good behavior with candies and chocolates could be doing harm. That might prevent kids from learning how to defer gratification and could lead to problems down the road.

In other words, candy just happened to be the control factor used in this study, but it could have been staying up late, buying too many new toys, playing excessive video games or even reading in bed after lights out.  If parents constantly allow their children whatever they want, regardless of appropriateness, they are not teaching their children to make good decisions, choose wisely and act maturely.  And that’s what can lead to problems in adulthood with those very same issues on a larger scale.  If you’ve never had to follow rules, why would rules imposed by your parents seem any different than rules imposed by the state?

Are you still worried that your children may end up in jail because you let them eat candy?  Don’t be.  Adult violence is very rare, and in this case they asked adults to remember how often they were permitted to eat candy as children.  Relying on human memory for any scientific study is extremely risky.  Most people can’t remember what they ate last week, let alone 25 years ago.

There are some important take away messages here, though.  We can help our children become smart, responsible adults.  As adults, we know that there is a time and a place for eating candy.  Confectionery is a treat – it’s not meant to take the place of breakfast, lunch or dinner and it will not replace a balanced diet consisting of lean protein, low fat dairy, whole grains and fruits and vegetables.  That said, if we eat a diet rich in a variety of foods, and we include plenty of activity in our lives, we can enjoy candy and other sweets in moderation.  In fact, sweetness in our diets makes life more pleasurable.  Therefore, parents must help their children understand that candy consumption is not a reward.  We should not bribe our children with candy.  We should teach them how to include some of their favorite foods as part of an overall healthy, active lifestyle.  

The study’s author even came to the same conclusion.  Moore said his results were not strong enough to recommend parents stop giving their children candies and chocolates.  “This is an incredibly complex area,” he said.  “It’s not fair to blame it on the candy.” 

What’s your opinion?  Is what I outline easier said than done?  How do you help your children make wise decisions about food and exercise?

kid in a candy shop. by rhoadeecha