Fun food-Joe Breakers

Joe Breakers. A legacy to dental professionals in the candy industry. Perhaps no other candy has the extraordinary hardness of a Joe Breaker, or perhaps a high sugar content.

Said enough. Next, discover the unrelieved joy (and frustration) that accompanies the experience of Joe Breaker.

The ancient Egyptians used honey, sweet fruits, spices and nuts to make sweets. Sugar was not available in Egypt. The first written record of its accessibility was found around 500 AD in India. India has given Arabs the habit of making sugar from boiled sugar cane syrup. The Arabs introduced sugar into Europe around 1100 AD. Originally thought to be a spice, sugar was used only for medicinal purposes and was given in very small amounts until the 15th century due to its very shortage. By the 16th century, due to the widespread cultivation of sugar and the improvement of refining methods, sugar was no longer considered a rare commodity. At this point, crude candy was made in Europe, but by the end of the 18th century, candy making machines were producing much more complex candies.

When sugar is cooked at high temperatures, it completely crystallizes into candy balls. The Joe Breaker was arguably a hard candy and was very similar to some of the popular American candies in the mid-19th century. Hard candies were usually sold in single pieces. The shopkeeper took out the required number of pieces from the glass case or jar. By the mid-18th century, nearly 400 candy factories in the United States had produced penny candies.

Thanks to the efforts of the Ferrari Bread Candy Company in Forest Park, Illinois, Joe Breaker has become prominent. Founded in 1919, the Ferrari Pan Candy Company is the brainchild of Salvador Ferrari and his two brother-in-laws, specializing in candies made from the hot and cold bread process. Ferrari Pan currently specializes in the production of original Joe Breakers, Boston Baked Beans and Red Hot. Although there were many Joe Breaker makers in the 21st century, such as Nestlé’s Willy Wonka Candy Company and Scone Candy Company, Ferrari Bread is still the most prolific bread candy maker in the world.

Also known as gobstoppers (from English slang: stoppers for closing mouth gobs and openings), Joe Breaker belongs to the category of hard candies, usually with a small size for each round candy. It is in the range of 4. “Large ball to 3-3 / 8”. The surface and interior of the jaw breaker are very hard and are not suitable for people with sensitive mouths. Jaw breakers are almost always hollow, except for the super-large 3-3 / 8 “balls, which have a gum-filled center.

Let’s get to the point of the candy making hot bread process. Joe breakers are made up of sugar, sugar and other sugars. It takes 14 to 19 days to make a grain of jaw breaker, from a grain of sugar to a finished product. A batch of jaw breakers constantly rolls in a giant spherical copper kettle over a gas flame. All kettles and pans have wide mouths or openings.

There are five basic steps used to create a jaw breaker.

• Pour sugar
  Paneer (a worker who makes candy from a pot or kettle) pours granulated sugar into the pot while the gas flame preheats the pot. As the crystallization process progresses, each grain of sugar becomes astounding. Other particles crystallize around it in a spherical pattern. The panner puts hot liquid sugar in a pan along its edge. As liquid sugar adheres to the sugar grains, the size of the jaw breaker begins to grow. In a seemingly endless effort, Panner continues to add additional liquid sugar to the bread at regular intervals over a period of 14 to 19 days, rotating the kettle non-stop. It is possible to add liquid sugar to the pan more than 100 times in 14 to 19 days. Either the panner or any other worker will visually inspect the jaw breaker on a regular basis to ensure that the candy is in good shape.
• Add other ingredients
  Only the outer layer of most types of jaw breakers is colored. Only when the jaw breaker is nearly complete will the panner add the desired color and flavor to the edge of the pan. As the kettle keeps spinning, all jaw breakers are evenly “dressed” in color and taste.
• Polishing
  When the jaw breaker reaches its optimum size, it will move from hot pan to polishing pan after about two weeks. Hot pans and polishing pans are very similar. At this point, the jaw breaker is set to rotate in the polishing pan. Another panner adds food grade wax to the bread so that each candy is polished as the bread rolls. Once the polishing is complete, the jaw breaker is complete and ready for packaging.
• Measurement
  The finished jaw breaker is loaded onto a sloping ramp that allows the candy colors to be mixed evenly. A small batch of jaw breakers rolls down the ramp and falls into the central shoot. The jaw breaker continues the journey by falling into a tray placed on the swirl arm of the central chute. Each tray holds only the specified weight of the jaw breaker (that is, 80 ounces or 5 lbs). When it reaches that weight, swing the tray out of the way so that the next tray is loaded. When the upper tray reaches a heavy load, the lower tray drops the jaw breaker into the bagging machine.
• Bagging
  Automatically bag the jaw breaker using a large machine that holds a wide spool of thin plastic on a rotating drum. The machine forms plastic bags, fills them with jaw breakers, and then seals the bags. Filled bags are currently in the final stages of production. All you have to do is put the finished bag in the packing box and put it on the market.

Note: Unless you like the appearance of broken teeth, the jaw breaker is intended to be inhaled and will not be bitten.

Joe Breaker Trivia

• The jaw breaker can be as big as a golf ball or as small as a candy sprinkle.
• When you split and open the jaw breaker, you’ll see dozens of layers of sugar that look very much like the concentric rings of old wood in cross section.
• Joe Breaker is not intended for anxious people who are always in a hurry. Proper consumption of the jaw breaker can take several hours. Remember: suck, lick, anything, but don’t try to bite the layer. Joe breakers are made of crystallized sugar and are sometimes considered to have the same tooth-crushing hardness as concrete. be careful.
• There are at least two reported opportunities for a jaw breaker to explode spontaneously and inflict severe burns on its consumers requiring hospitalization. One explosion involved a 9-year-old girl from Florida. She left the Joe Breaker in direct sunlight, and when she first licked it, the Joe Breaker exploded on her face and severely burned some parts of her body. Another explosion occurred on the site of the Discovery Channel television show “MythBusters.” Using a microwave oven, the different layers of compression in the jaw breaker are heated at different speeds, indicating that the jaw breaker can explode, producing a large amount of very hot spray. It was. Candy that scatters over a wide area. MythBusters host Adam Savage and another crew member were treated for mild burns.

Happy licking!