h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello. While sitting here sooking on a chupa chubs lolly, I came to wonder how they're actually made. Is the lolly "head" made with a hole for the stick, or is the stick dunked into a vat of boiling sugar and then kind of "moulded" somehow? I wonder....

Cynx

Sweet molded to the stick.

"Is the lolly "head" made with a hole for the stick, or is the stick dunked into a vat of boiling sugar and then kind of "moulded" somehow?"

Actually, neither Although I spent six years making sweets for a living I never made lollipops, but I know how they're manufactured.

Let's go back a couple of steps. When you were at school did you ever make anything in pottery or metalwork class where you poured liquid clay/hot metal into a mould which was made of two halves, and which you pulled apart when the liquid had hardened, revealing the whatever-it-was you were making?

Now let's talk about drops - pear drops, cough drops, fruit drops, mint drops, acid drops. To make drops, you have to boil sugar, water and glucose syrup to around 290°F (often higher), then pour it out onto a metal slab, add flavour and colour and mix it all together. As the sugar cools it becomes stiffer, and eventually reaches the consistency of something like bread dough.

Lollipops are simply drops with a stick in them and are made on a machine that looks like two upright bicycle wheels, one on top of the other - like a big figure 8. Around the outside of each wheel are dozens, or even hundreds of impressions, each of which is half of the shape of the lollipop. As the wheels turn, the impressions come together and line up so that you get a hollow that is the full shape of the lollipop - just like the two halves of the mould that you used in pottery or metalwork class.

The soft sugar mass is rolled into a big sausage, and pulled out to a thin rope which is then fed into the machine. As the wheels turn (one clockwise, one anti clockwise, like two cogs) they pull they sugar rope through, and it gets squashed into the two halves of each 'hollow', forming the lollipop.

There's also another part of the machine which pushes the stick into the lollipop at the exact moment that the two halves of the mould come together. The lollipops are either fed into a refrigerated tunnel to cool them down (they're still a bit soft), or left to cool down on a metal or marble slab.

That's a very simple and old fashioned lollipop machine, and a somewhat simplified explanation of how it works. Newer machines are fully automated from boiling the sugar right through to wrapping the lollipop, which is never touched by human hand from beginning to end. With some of these machines, the sugar is still almost liquid when it's moulded into the shape of the lollipop, so instead of pushing the stick into the sweet, the stick is already positioned inside the mould as the two halves come together, and the sugar sort of flows around it as it's being moulded.

I hope you were taking notes, I'll be asking questions later

So much lollipop knowledge!

Well, I can't really follow that post. But when I saw the thread title, I thought it was going to be a question about why we don't have those "Funny feet" icecreams anymore

Fb, demander of funny feet.

That sounds like a great machine. I want one. Mind, I often want machines that look or sound good even if I haven't yet worked out what it does.

PP

I understand you, Oojakapiv. A very clear explanation, I thought. But then, it is in some ways similar to a tablet press, the workings of which I had to study in excruciating detail (though I've never actually seen one).

TRiG.

Toot Sweets!

It could be - I've never seen a tablet press. Drops can be made by the same sort of machine (but without the device for putting in the stick), or they can be made by another machine called a drop roller - sort of like an old fashioned clothes mangle but somewhat smaller, usually no more than 12" across. The impressions are cut into each of the rollers (usually brass) so that they form a row of sweets each time they come together. Here's the best picture I could find of one http://www.actrader.com.au/Machinery/Confectionery/1Used/S213362_DropRoller1.html

I've made some "clear toy" type lollipops at home - those were just made in metal molds (usually animal shapes, hence the "toy" part), and the resulting lollipop was flat-backed because the molds I had didn't have a back part to them. I just used the clear toy recipe, which is pretty much the same as what Goshoojak () described, except that rather than allowing the cooked mixture to cool first, it was colored during the cooking process (they don't usually have added flavors), then just poured immediately into the molds, and allowed to harden. I think that rather than have the sticks fall out of the molds when I poured in the liquid, I waited and carefully laid them in place right after the pouring.

Professionally made clear toy candies and lollipops always have a backside to them, but they're also made by hand. I'm not quite sure, but I think from the molding seams I've seen on them, the molds they use are two pieces, so that they can be taken apart to release the finished candy, with a hole in one side so that you can pour in the hot liquid candy mix.

Utterly facinating. I suppose if I'd sat and thought about it I'd maybe have worked it out. How does one apply for a job as a lollypop maker? lol

Thanks for replying.
Cynx

"How does one apply for a job as a lollypop maker? lol"

No, 'lolly' is short for lollipop.

You find a sweet factory that makes lollipops and ask to be trained as an apprentice sugar boiler.