Wednesday, November 4, 2009

One Word Wednesday: Glassy

Lauren's friend brought these candies back from the Papabubble location in Seoul, Korea. I have to say I took much delight in these candies when I realized how they were made as I watched the video on YouTube. When I first bit through and saw that the lines continued throughout the product, I knew that they weren't printed and thought they must be co-extruded. However, upon watching video I was immediately taken back to Venice when I realized that these were made like the centuries old method of Murano Glass. The various colored sugar pieces are fused together first in a thick log, then in a near-melt condition it is stretched thin to form small pieces with fine detail. The word "glassy" has an additional and appropriate double meaning for food scientists: when an amorphous (i.e. non-crystalline), solid state of matter is physically hard they say it is in the glassy state. So, in this case the sugar in this candy would be termed to be in the glassy state. Oh yes, and they're delicious!