Suckers/Lollipopps

[Wendy DeBord]

I've used the loranne oils and bottles of orange or lemon oils and can't get the flavor intensity I want. The orange and lemon flavors (a different brand) work just fine with a little tartic acid. BUT I can't get the intensity I want with those loranne oils like peppermint, cinnamon, cherry, etc...regardless of the quantity I add to the pot.

I add the flavoring after the syrup has cooled down abit. The oil flavors smell sooooo strong you can hardly stand and work with them. Yet when the candy hardens, the flavor is very mild.

I was hoping someone might be able to teach me more about this. Perhaps I'm using the wrong amount of flavoring or an inferior product?

[pchef2]

Im having the same problem. Did you come up with anything yet?

[Wendy DeBord]

Glad to find out I'm not alone with this problem. Unforunately, I only make these a couple times a year so I haven't done anything yet to work on the issue. If I figure this out I will post the answers, hope you will do the same.....

[nicolekaplan]

althought they are limited in flavors try the boyajin oils (ny cake and bake or dairyland) they are much stronger oils and have a more natural oil. lorann is great for when you want to make rootbeer or grape but not for a natural flavor. it is also nice if you add zest or say cinn sticks in to infuse in the syrup while it cooks.

[Wendy DeBord]

Great, thanks for the brand lead Nicole!

I've been guessing at my acid (for fruit flavors) it's usually fine, but one time I over shot it and they were horrible-wound up throwing out the batch. Do you have any guidelines you follow? It's not like you can work "to taste" with these.

[nicolekaplan]

i will try to remember to look up my recipes on tues, i am out of the restaurant until then. however for the infusion of zest and such i always just go with the eyeball method.

[Overlordofpastry]

For fruit flavoured lollipops, I have used fruit purees instead of oils or flavourings and come out with pretty good success. It has a natural taste and colour but it can get expensive and it easily burns.

[pattyc]

We covered lollipops in my class with Sebastien Canonne and some of his recommendations were that after cooking the sucrose, glucose and water that you skim the top with a tea strainer to remove the impurities before it boils, and use distilled water to avoid impurities in your product. Then add the flavor and color. If you do this in the beginning it washes out the color and becomes too pale. Also, don't put it in at the very end because the color and the flavor need time to cook. The metal molds make the lollipop shiny, and pouring it out on Silpat with a stick will tend to make it cloudy.

[Wendy DeBord]

Welcome PattyC, nice to see new people posting! Are you currently studing with Canonne? or a student at The french Pastry School?

I've always used sugar, water from the tap and corn syrup, I've never had any issues of impurities. But I can see the value of using bottled h20 if your living in an area with questionable tap water.

Although I agree that metal molds retain a high shine to the sugar (shiney mold=shiney product, dull mold=dull product)I have to disagree with his thoughts on silpats for suckers. The bottom will pick up the pattern of the mat slightly....thats true so that surface doesn't not have a high shine like when molded in metal, but it doesn't change the chemical properties of my sugar to make it cloudy. Ideally I'd love metal molds, but given the limited equipment most of us have, I don't think silpats create an inferior product that we should avoid.

I've also experimented with 'when' I added the flavoring and color and I can't see or taste any difference between. I think these loranne oils just don't cut it, because using another suppliers orange oil and lemon oil work normally. Next time I make suckers I'm going to try Nicholes brand reccomendation.....

PattyC I hope I haven't made you shy away from future posts, since I disagreed with a couple of Canonnes points?! Please join us!! You'll see someone else will come along and disagree with my points.....but it's in these exchanges that we all learn from each other. Again, WELCOME!

[pattyc]

I've taken a couple of three day classes at the French Pastry School to learn more about chocolates, specifically. My last class was with Sebastien and on "Old and New World Sugar Confectionaries", which was extremely informative, and a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time learning about the hows and whys of what we were being taught. I can't say enough positive things about the instruction at the school.

Our lollipop recipe called for sucrose, glucose (to retard crystalization), water, as well as oil based essence and water-based food coloring, which was used "as needed."

I know some of the other pastry chefs in my class were commenting that it would be nice to have metal molds, but that wasn't always feasible. We used metal molds and plastic molds, and I couldn't tell the difference but ours was I believe a licorice sucker, so rather dark in color. I can't speak to the type of oils and coloring we used because I didn't check the labels closely, and now wish I had. And as for silpat, I discovered it's useful for more than just baking cookies on it, we used it under pots on induction burners - an amazing product.

I've been trying to figure out how to post for the past month, and was completely confounded by the process. I finally emailed egullet and discovered that by not posting over the course of several months I let my account lapse. So I'm happy to be reactivated once again to posting status. After reading nearly every thread since egullets conception I'm feeling more confident about posting.

In my notes I had written that a smaller pot that is full of ingredients was preferable to a large pot. We were also told that once the mixture came to a boil we could brush the inside of the bowl, and to use a paintbrush rather than a spoon. What I didn't write down was the rationale, any idea? Does it cook more evenly if this is done?

[Wendy DeBord]

You use some h2o on your brush to wash down any grains of unmelted sugar stuck to the sides of your pan because those grains can infect the rest of your batch growing crystals of hard sugar...ruining your batch.

Why use a small pot verses using a bigger pot....my thoughts as to why he teaches that is: with a small pot the whole bottom surface recieves the heat from the burner, with a large pot that over hangs your burner there are areas that don't recieve the flame so the sugar doesn't cook evenly....and usually once the sugar has melted you shouldn't stir it while it's cooking.

[pattyc]

Thanks for your reply, it's always helpful to know the "why" of something, and as a result I just put some additions in my notes. One of the problems in a class where each group is off working on their own recipe is that you might not hear all of the information that will be helpful in pulling off your recipe successfully when you're on your own. When I first started out I was unfamilar with the techniques, which aren't typcially explained in a recipe. Now I'm getting better at looking at a recipe and reading between the lines, and am able to figure out the steps that aren't listed. It certainly is a learning process!

[Wendy DeBord]

I was wondering if you would mind sharing your ratio: oil to sugar amount Nichole?

I know this is a such a simple thing-but I'm curious out of respect for you-what ratios you (Nichole Kaplan) specificly use. Thank-you!

[pattyc]

Just wondering if anyone has tried the very intense flavorings found from Amoretti's? Perhaps that will give you the flavor you're looking for.

[Wendy DeBord]

To the best of my knowledge Amoretti's line doesn't include oil's. Flavoring compounds would soften the hard cracked sugar so you'd have a limp sucker.

edited to add: ooops, no one read into that.....

Edited March 23, 2004 by Sinclair (log)

[pchef2]

Sorry it took so long to come back to this subject but after much research, this is what I have found. The Lorann oil website gives a recipe for hard candy.

It is: 2 C. sugar

2/3 C. light corn syrup

3/4 C. water

1 Dram (.125 oz) (1 t.) Lorann oil flavoring

Of course cook this to 300 degrees. They also suggest adding 1/8 t. of citric acid to inhance the flavor. I have used citric acid when making pate de fruit, but have not used it in making lollipops. I'm not sure when to add the acid because I add it at the end when making pate de fruit. I have not tried the recipe above. I normally use glucose, sugar and water, but I will try this recipe and let you know how it turns out. Maybe the citric acid will make the flavors more intense.

[Wendy DeBord]

I've used that recipe from loranne, works fine. I don't think it's flavoring is as intense as typical purchased suckers. I made suckers for Easter and used the Boyan (I've forgotten the exact name and spelling) brand of oils. I had a hard time finding the oils thru normal wholesale suppliers and wound up buying them at World Bizarre Stores, it's a little 3 pack of lemon, orange and lime, aprox. 3 oz each.

I made about 6x that quanitity recipe and used one bottle of lemon oil and about 2 tsp. citric acid. It makes all the difference with the citrus flavors, otherwise they're very bland. I did similar with orange oil but it's flavor came thru using less oil, about half.

I think the lorannse oils are find for some flavors but not others. It's a work in progress..........

[kthull]

Wendy, the brand is Boyajian and you can buy direct from their Web site: www.boyajianinc.com

They only have a handful of citrus oils and about the same amout of flavorings. And I've no idea if the oils are as good as the flavorings when it comes to candy making.

[Wendy DeBord]

Thanks Kevin. Those oils are really great in suckers. I think they are perfect in any application that takes oil. It seems that not enough people have been buying them thru wholesale sources and so they aren't so available any more. But I think their better then emlusions.

Yesterday I made a huge batch of chocolate mousse (the one I posted on another thread). I added their lemon oil and some lemon emulsion to one bowl. Orange oil and emulsion to another.........they flavor the chocolate mousse devinely. It's such a natural rich flavor I was very pleased.