Dragon's beard candy

[daekkyn]

Anyone heard of dragon's beard candy?

Well it is a traditional china hand-pulled candy which looks like spun sugar, but made very differently. The technique is similar to noodle making, you start with a torus, you expand it, double it, expand, double, etc... the number of strands increases exponentially in powers of 2 (I'm a computer scientist, I love powers of 2) and can go up to 16384.

I've discovered this candy on Dave Arnold's blog where you can find a detailed video of the recipe.

I tried the recipe a few times and I think it is very fun to do. The first times were highly unsuccessful, but you quickly get better.

I followed the recipe of Dave Arnold's

(more or less), it was impossible to find corn syrup in Switzerland, I therefore replaced it with glucose syrup which has the same property of preventing crystallization.

The temperature 133°C (271°F) is extremely important, if you overshoot, the candy puck will be rock hard. As I was doing small quantities (100g of sugar) and I only have a medium size pan, it was a nightmare to stick my thermometer sufficiently deep in the sugar.

I used silicon molds to shape the puck, here are some results:

Transferring the molten sugar to the molds:

The cooled puck:

Forming the stands (I never manage to create equal sized stands, there are always some thicker strands):

As I don't like peanuts, I replaced the filling with chocolate:

I personally did not like the taste of them, faaaar to sweet, but my 9 year old sister loved them. Maybe I should try with chocolat powder instead of cornstarch for a better taste. And the replacement of the peanuts with chocolate probably was not a good idea in terms of decreasing sweetness.

Another idea is to use the stands as decoration for other thing (e.g. a cake).

I highly encourage you to try, they are very cheap to do and very fun.

If you have questions or suggestions, please post them.

[annachan]

Those brings back memories! Yes, dragon bread candy is traditionally very sweet. So sweet that I actually avoided them when I was a kid. I got into them when we're back in Hong Kong several years back. While showing hubby how they're made, I chatted with the candy maker. I told him that I like to watch it being made, but it is too sweet for my liking. He told me that time has changed and it is no longer made as sweet as it used too. I bought some to try and he's right. With it being less sweet, it was great. I might just have to give this a try someday.

[Chris Hennes]

To make it less sweet do you just use a different sugar? What would you suggest?

[Justin Pinkney]

That looks incredibly fun, have to try immediately!

[Kerry Beal]

To make it less sweet do you just use a different sugar? What would you suggest?

Isomalt I'd say

[JTravel]

That is SO great. Going to China, going to look for it. Coming home and trying it. I like that I can only make a small batch.

Thanks so much.

[minas6907]

I have a feeling that when the candy maker said they dont make them as sweet as they used too, they probably made them using a considerable amount of honey. I'd find it very hard to think that the candy makers on the streets on Hong Kong are using isomalt to make this stuff, its just a simple candy boiled to be a bit stiffer them taffy. We dont know what additional ingredients they added to the candy when annachan was a child.

[Will]

There's a guy here in LA who's been making them. I haven't managed to make it there yet. There are some photos here:

http://theroamingbelly.blogspot.com/2012/05/dragon-beard-candy-cuz-i-like-my-candy.html

[Mjx]

To make it less sweet do you just use a different sugar? What would you suggest?

As far as I recall, plain corn syrup (not the HFCS) is both very cheap (cheaper than sugar) and weakly sweet.

[daekkyn]

As far as I recall, plain corn syrup (not the HFCS) is both very cheap (cheaper than sugar) and weakly sweet.

It is indeed less sweet, but I doubt that the result would solidify if one used only corn syrup.

[Mjx]

I was thinking it probable that some combination of sugar and corn syrup is used (and not with the original intention of making something less sweet, but of going with a cheaper alternative).

[Will]

According to Wikipedia (and this makes sense to me), maltose syrup and sugar are what were originally used. I imagine maltose would be a little less sweet than honey.

Edited June 18, 2012 by Will (log)