Producer: Popular Science China
Production: Su Genglin
Producer: Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
"Twenty-three, sugar melon sticky..." This nursery rhyme has been sung for many years, but what has changed is the times, and what has not changed is the feelings. Sugar melon is actually a kind of stove sugar, which carries the thick folk culture of the Chinese nation as a kind of seasonal cuisine. So, what are the technical secrets hidden behind the stove candy?
What kind of sugar is stove sugar?
In fact, stove sugar is a sweet food made with caramel. So, what is caramel? Caramel is a kind of edible sugar made by fermenting starchy grain raw materials such as corn, glutinous rice, and japonica rice. Since the main component of caramel is maltose, it is also called maltose syrup.
Sacrifice stove with sugar melon
The production of caramel has a long history in our country. About 3,000 years ago, China began to produce caramel, which is the earliest starch sugar produced by using plant raw materials in China. The original caramel was called "饧" (or "饴"), and it is said that the current sugar word evolved from the word "饧".
Caramel is generally a light yellow viscous and transparent liquid, and the quality caramel is colorless and transparent, and has a special flavor of maltose. The application range of caramel is very wide, not only the raw material for the manufacture of stove sugar, but also used in the manufacture of candy, pastries, canned, jam, biscuits and other food manufacturing.
As a finished product of caramel, stove sugar is not only a sugar melon. For example, Kanto sugar, shortbread, hemp sugar, rice sugar, etc. also belong to the stove sugar. China's territory is vast, and the method and shape of stove sugar are very different. The stove sugar used in old Beijing has varieties of sugar melon, Kanto sugar, and nan sugar.
Sugar melon
For the sugar melon that everyone is very familiar with, we don't need to say more. The long stick-shaped Kanto sugar was originally a favorite sugar of the Kanto people. Kanto sugar is a sugar product made from malt and millet, and it is actually a caramel product. Because the sugar originally shipped from the northeast was sold at the Kanto store in Beijing, it was named Kanto sugar.
Kanto sugar
As for the southern sugar, it is a special snack in the Chaoshan region and is also a commonly used stove sugar for the sacrificial stove. The sugars used in Nan Sugar are caramel and granulated sugar, mixed with dry ingredients such as peanuts, sesame seeds, and beans. Don't misunderstand Nan Sugar, the word "South" here does not represent the direction, but means "pouring". It is made by pouring syrup on a sautéed dry ingredient.
Southern sugar
The stove sugar stove cake used in Fuzhou festival stove is extremely rich in variety. It is said that there are more than twenty kinds of stove cakes, including sugar, cakes and foods in between. For example, peanut cake is made of peanut kernels stir-fried grinding powder and mixed with caramel, mazhi is made of glutinous rice mixed with caramel and shake a layer of sesame seeds, and fried rice in lard is shumi (a kind of red glutinous rice) fried in fresh lard and then put into syrup to form.
Fuzhou stove sugar stove cake
According to the old custom of Shanghai, the stove sugar is "Yuanbao sugar", which is also called "Zongzi Sugar" because of its similar shape to Zongzi.
Why is stove sugar particularly sticky?
The custom of sacrificing stoves has a long history, and "sugar melon sticky" is a standardized program. People offered the sweet and sticky stove candy to the stove king, hoping to stick to the mouth of the stove king, so that he could "say good things in heaven and auspicious in the netherworld."
Can stove candy really stick to the mouth of the stove king? This may just be a good wish of people, but it is true that stove sugar is really sticky. So, why does stove sugar have sticky characteristics? To illustrate this, let's take a look at its raw materials, the ingredients of caramel.
The main ingredient of caramel is maltose, which is the source of caramel sweetness. And the content is second only to maltose for dextrin, so what is dextrin for?
Caramel chemical composition produced from different raw materials
Dextrin is a macromolecular polysaccharide between starch and maltose, consisting of many glucose units. Although dextrin is sugar, it has no sweetness. It is dispersed in water to produce a large viscosity, which can be used to make adhesives.
dextrin
For example, adhesives made of corn dextrin can be used as adhesives for cartons, cartons, stamps, wallpaper, envelopes, tapes, etc. In this way, is the "sticky" caramel full of energy due to the dextrin component? Saying that there is "paste" in the stove sugar is nothing more than giving the dextrin an image.
What's the story of maltose?
Regarding caramel, we have just introduced dextrin. Maltose is the main sweetening substance of caramel, and it's time for us to talk about it.
Some people may say, is maltose specifically referring to the sugar present in malt? In fact, maltose is present in malt, but it is not unique to malt. To say that the origin of the name "maltose" is really related to "malt".
It is said that the substance maltose was originally found in malt, so the word maltose is derived from malt (malt) and the suffix "-ose", the latter used for the name of sugar.
Barley grains
In the foods around us, foods like grains, corn, potatoes, legumes, nuts, and certain fruits and vegetables produce maltose when digested. The main ingredient of sugar products such as white sugar, brown sugar, and rock sugar is sucrose. So what is the difference between maltose and sucrose?
In fact, maltose and sucrose are chemically classified as disaccharides, that is, they are composed of two monosaccharide units. The difference is that maltose consists of two glucose units, while sucrose consists of a glucose unit and a fructose unit.
maltose
cane sugar
Whether it's maltose or sucrose, the first thing we're interested in is their sweetness. Speaking of sweetness, maltose is only about 30% sweeter than sucrose, and its value as a sweetener is not as high as that of sucrose.
How is maltose made of caramel?
The ancients said: "Rao, rice and rice are fried." This means that the production of "caramel" (caramel) requires "rice" (starch raw material), "rice" (glycosylase) and "frying" (boiling). The "millet" here is talking about malt, and it seems that the ancients made "millet" is inseparable from malt.
This is because malt is the "magician" who converts starch into maltose. Protobarium usually contains only a small amount of enzymes, but after germination there are more enzymes. On the one hand, the original enzyme is activated, and on the other hand, more enzymes are generated.
As a result, malt is rich in amylase, including α-amylase, β-amylase and extreme dextrin. And these amylases are starch saccharification agents. Under the action of starch invertase, starch undergoes hydrolysis reaction, and the resulting is maltose and so on. This is how caramel is produced.
Starch is hydrolyzed to maltose under the action of enzymes
The caramel production method used in China for thousands of years is the malting method, that is, rice or other grains as starch raw materials, cooked and added maltosillating agents, and then the sugar liquid is poured out and concentrated into caramel by boiling.
Beginning in the 1960s, enzymatic saccharification processes began to be applied to industrial production. The so-called enzymatic saccharification process refers to a sugar making process that first heats and gelatinates the starchy grain raw material refining pulp, liquefies it with α-amylase, and then adds malt to saccharification.
malt
As a kind of seasonal food, the production process of stove sugar almost always follows the ancient traditional process, which is the intangible cultural heritage that is protected by many places.
How does stove sugar turn white?
The caramel is light yellow, and the stove sugar made is white, can it not be decolored? In fact, workshop-style caramel production is generally not decolored. However, a process called sugar pulling is used here, which is said to change the syrup from yellow to white.
Caramel
Most of the caramel produced by the traditional process is a light yellow viscous transparent liquid, which is due to the isotropic nature of caramel. That is to say, light can penetrate the caramel body, so it looks transparent. If the brown sugar (a larger concentration of caramel) is repeatedly stretched and folded, the air outside will be wrapped in the brown sugar, resulting in countless bubbles inside the brown sugar.
Pull sugar
What are the consequences of this? On the one hand, it has become white, and on the other hand, it has become lighter. Why is it white? Due to the entry of air, the brown sugar from the original tight tissue structure to the structure of bubbles and pores, light can not pass smoothly, so the transparency disappears, naturally white. Why is it getting lighter? Because the brown sugar is filled with air, the density naturally becomes smaller, not light and strange!
Stove sugar
Technically, the caramel products that have been pulled have a better taste, that is, they are both sweet and crispy.
What should I pay attention to when eating stove sugar?
Stove sugar is delicious and you can't eat more! Some people think that the sweetness of maltose is only 30% of sucrose, so maltose may be lower in calories than sucrose. In fact, although the sweetness of maltose is not high, its calories are not low, and it is basically the same as sucrose.
And maltose can be broken down into glucose after digestion in the human body. Excessive consumption of foci sugar can also lead to obesity, which should not be ignored! Especially for diabetics, it is better to eat less.
Twenty-three, sugar melon sticky
And for children, the temptation of stove candy is too great. However, it should be known that foci sugar is particularly sticky and is very easy to attach to the teeth, which will increase the risk of tooth decay. Remind the children that don't forget to brush their teeth after eating the stove candy.