Confectioners/ confectionery

Apgar, J. L., Seligson, F. H., Consumer consumption patterns of chocolate and confectionery, Manuf. Confectioner, 75, 31, 1995. 

It is possible to take the process to completion to produce pure dextrose. This material obviously has a DE of 100. The commonest type of glucose syrup in sugar confectionery is 42 DE (or similar). This material is even referred to as confectioner s glucose. Other grades of glucose syrup are used in sugar confectionery, such as products of 68 DE or equivalent, which have the same water activity as invert sugar syrup and so can often be used as a direct replacement. 

Some gum users now take gum in a pre-prepared form. An example is spray dried gum acacia which has been used in pharmaceutical products for some time - this offers the pharmaceutical manufacturer a clean and ready-to-use product. Holding the same advantages, instant forms of gum acacia also have been offered to confectioners for some time although, obviously, the instant gum is more expensive. A confectionery manufacturer that uses gum as a minor ingredient may well find that the capital and labour cost of purifying the raw material is not cost effective. However, a company that uses gum acacia as a major ingredient might come to a different conclusion. 

Tabletting is the area where sugar confectionery and pharmaceutical manufacture come closest, as the machines are similar the process can also be similar. Confectioners normally try to make tablets as hard as possible whereas pharmaceutical tablets are normally made to be fairly soft.

The manufacture of confectionery is not a science based industry, as these products have traditionally been created by skilled confectioners working empirically. 

While most people have eaten sugar confectionery at some time few people know the underlying science. Almost all sugar confectionery was developed not from an understanding of the science but by confectioners working by trial and error. In many cases this empirical knowledge was obtained before any scientific understanding was available. 

This book has to be dedicated to the largely anonymous confectioners who invented most sugar confectionery products. It is also dedicated to my old friend Brian Jackson. 

Confectioner s sugar is used in confectionery and oral pharmaceutical formulations. It is generally regarded as a relatively nontoxic and nonirritant material. See also Sucrose. 

Trade journals such as Food Engineering, Manufacturing Confectioner, Confectioners Journal, International Confectioner, Candy Industry, Confectionery and Ice Cream World, and Food Processing supply current literature of original papers by contributors from the industry. Federal and state experiment station bulletins are relatively easy to obtain and are usually listed in Chemical Abstracts and the Bibliography of Agriculture 70). 

The large variety of products turned out by the confectionery industry require a remarkable flexibility in the carbohydrates that serve as major constituents of these products. Physical and chemical properties play a major role. Technological control of raw materials, formulations, processing, and finished confections is important. In choosing the various types of sweeteners the candy technologist is governed by the consumer, for it is only repeat sales that tell confectioners whether they are satisfying consumers. 

Jordan, S., Confectionery Problems, Chicago, 111., National Confectioners... 

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