Poprock Recipe

by Chewy  

This is NOT for the faint of heart or for children (regardless of your age...you know who you are!) But if you want to make something that will make you the coolest parent alive or just for nostalgic reasons, this labor intensive recipe will do the trick.

Step 1Gather Ingredients

~ 2 Cups Sugar
~ 1 Tsp Baking Soda 

~ 1/4 Cup Citric Acid Crystals (Can be tricky to find. )

~ 1/3 Cup  of Corn Syrup
~ Small amount of Water (Just enough to get sugar wet)
~ 1/4-1 Tsp Flavoring     (any extract will work. Use what you like! When using stronger flavors such as cinnamon, mint, and cherry, you can use a small amount (about 1/4 teaspoon). Subtler flavors such as lemon, strawberry, orange, and peach require more (1/2 to 1 teaspoon.)
~ A Few Drops of Food Coloring of your choice
~ Candy Thermometer (Make sure it is properly calibrated.  Put some water on to boil and put your thermo. in.  Bring the water up to boil and see what the temp. is when it starts boiling.  You may have to adjust the paper inside to set boiling point to 212°F.  Then you know it's ready to go.)
~ Medium sized Saucepan
~ Whisk
~ Pastry brush
~ Powdered Sugar
~ Large Cookie Sheet
~ Zip-top plastic bag
~ Blunt Instrument ( i.e. hammer, brick, lead pipe, etc.)

Step 2Candy Making Time

~ Prepare all items before you start.  Dust the cookie sheet with the powdered sugar, and sprinkle a generous amount of the Citric Acid on the sugar.

~Combine Sugar, Water, and Corn Syrup, in the saucepan.  Place pan over Medium heat.  Stir gently and well to prevent splashing on the sides.  Sugar crystals might form on the sides of the pan. If so, wipe down the sides of the pan with a damp pastry brush. Even one crystal can encourage growth of more. As soon as the syrup starts to boil, STOP stirring.  At this point, you have dissolved the crystal structure of the sugar. Stirring or other agitation is one of the many factors that can encourage the fructose and glucose molecules in your syrup to rejoin and form sucrose—crystals of sugar.  It needs to be smooth.  That's also why it's important to use the Corn Syrup.  Corn Syrup acts as an "interfering agent" in this and many other candy recipes. It contains long chains of glucose molecules that tend to keep the sucrose molecules in the syrup from crystallizing.

~Here comes the hard part.  This is a SLOW process.  Be patient and whatever you do, DO NOT turn the heat up. Medium is perfect for this.   You might be tempted to, but trust me.  It'll get there.  This is a good time to tell the kids to go play.

~ Place the candy thermometer in the pan, being careful not to let it touch the bottom or sides, and let the syrup boil without stirring .

~ While the syrup is happily bubbling away, prepare the Baking Soda.  Measure out your flavoring.  (We're making Orange flavored Pop Rocks.)

~  Remove from heat when it gets to about 305°F. By now, there is almost no water left in the syrup.  Let the syrup cool to about 275°F and add your flavoring, Baking Soda, and food coloring. Stir quickly and make sure it's as mixed in as you can get it.  If you add it  as soon as you take it off the heat, most of the flavor will just cook off.
 
~ Pour out onto your cookie sheet. It can be any shape.  Try to get globs and dollops of the candy.  Once it's poured, sprinkle more Citric Acid on the top of the candy.

~ Allow to cool completely.

TIP:  Candy can be a fickle master.  It's best to not make candy on a rainy or humid day.  Cooking candy syrup to the desired temperature means achieving a certain ratio of sugar to moisture in the candy. On a humid day, once the candy has cooled to the point where it is no longer evaporating moisture into the air, it can actually start reabsorbing moisture from the air. This can make the resulting candy softer than it is supposed to be.  That’s why dry days are recommended for candy making, although the effects of humidity can be somewhat counterbalanced by cooking the candy to the upper end of the appropriate temperature stage. (i.e. hard-crack stage is 300°F-310°F)

NOTE:  WORKING WITH CANDY LIKE THIS IS ESSENTIALLY WORKING WITH NAPALM.  BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN HEATING AND HANDLING IT.  MOLTEN SUGAR WILL CONTINUE TO BURN YOU!  IF YOU GET SOME ON YOU, RUN COLD WATER OVER IT FOR SEVERAL MINUTES. 

Step 3Anger Management

~ This is a good one for the kids to help out with!

~ Remove the cooled candy from the cookie sheet.  Break the sheet of candy into smaller pieces and place in plastic bag.

~ Using your blunt instrument of choice, smash the candy into Pop Rock size pieces!  Be careful not to pulverize the candy.  You want tiny chunks, not powder.

~Store in small plastic baggies, or airtight container. (Best to do this as soon as you're done smashing them.  Just like real Pop Rocks, they don't like humidity.)

Step 4 Let's get Fizzy!

~ Enjoy your freshly made chunks of nostalgia!  Eat them straight, or use them as a topping on cupcakes or other confections.

~ A better name for these might be Fizzy Rocks.  The magic happens when the sugar dissolves, and the citric acid and baking soda mix.  That's what creates that fizzy sensation. They don't make that loud snapping sound, but they are quite pleasant! (Be warned: They are a little sour.  Citric Acid is the powder used to make Sour Patch Kids so sour.) We had a great time making them.  You can't make REAL Pop Rocks at home, you need a pressure cooker capable of injecting CO2 into molten candy at 600 psi.  (EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TO GET WRONG.) 

~ Mix things up a little bit too.  Try using different color/flavor combinations.  ( Orange flavored Blue Pop Rocks, Cinnamon flavored Green Pop Rocks, etc.)  Or go really crazy and leave out the food color and make a "Mystery Flavor"!

~ The recipe is the same for lollipops and other hard candy.  Just leave out the baking soda mixture, and you've got lollies!  This is a great project to get the kids involved in, or to amaze your guests at your next party with your homemade chunks of awesome!

The Big Bang Theory

by Chewy

      When I was young, we had what I will describe as “fizzy sticks”. They were a lump of hard candy on the end of a plastic stick and when you stirred your Kool-Aid or juice with it, you magically carbonated your beverage with tiny bubbles. I am sure some child, somewhere, wondered what would happen if you skipped the liquids and applied directly to the tongue. I have no doubt this was the precursor to the Poprock, that iconic confection from the 70’s.

     General Foods patented the concept in 1956 . Research chemist William A. Mitchell receives credit for this invention that spent the next 20 years in the laboratory probably as a “gag” sweet. However, in 1975, this cracked up candy was finally marketed but ended it’s run with General Foods in 1983 due to marketplace malaise  and short shelf life. Later the product license changed hands and is currently distributed by Pop Rocks Inc (Atlanta, GA) and Zeta Espacial S.A. (Barcelona-Spain). If you have an overwhelming desire to know ALL the details, there is a book available, Pop Rocks: The Inside Story of America’s Revolutionary Candy by Dr. Marvin J. Rudolph. Who would read this? My son-in-law who once read a  book on salt.

     So how are these busting bits made and why do they work? You start with your basic hot sugary hard candy, boiling the mixture until all the water has been dissipated. This leaves you with a pure sugary syrup at a temperature of lava level. Letting it cool at this point results in plain old hard candy. But if you mix this hot mixture with carbon dioxide gas at 600 psi (pounds per square inch), tiny 600 psi carbon dioxide bubbles form in the candy.  As the candy cools, it shatters leaving behind pieces with trapped tiny bubbles. Imagine being in the factory on combustible candy day. Valium for everybody. When saliva comes in contact, the candy pieces break and dissolve releasing the carbon dioxide from the tiny bubbles. What ensues is a furious fireworks display in your mouth with popping and sizzling.

     What these little beauties will NOT do is cause a person’s stomach to explode. This urban legend  is still around and has been perpetuated in many forms of media and fiction. Extensively tested for safety, General Foods fought an uphill battle, even going so far as to send letters to school principles, advertisements in major publications and sending an “ambassador of pop” abroad to explain the workings of the product. MythBusters took on the long standing gossip and concluded that it was impossible to cause a stomach explosion even using pounds of the material. You would think this would settle the issue but I bet you know someone who is still fomenting this fable that ACTUALLY happened to their neighbors second cousin’s brother-in-law’s nephew on the maternal side.

     This “blast from the past” confection has seen a resurgence internationally, re-flooding the market since 2000 with a more advanced and innovative product. For those who would like to try their hand at making Poprocks, a recipe is to follow.