Sometimes customers ask us why we add sugar and glucose to make maple hard candy instead of only pure maple syrup. Actually, we do this not based on cost considerations, but based on the requirements of product production characteristics of maple hard candy.
Take a look at the picture of the two products. The left one is the maple sugar using maple syrup as the only one raw material, the right one is the Pollipop maple hard candy using maple syrup, sugar and glucose as raw materials.
We can see very clearly that the difference between the two maple candies is very obvious. Maple candy which uses maple syrup as the only raw material, is opaque, heavy in taste, soft in texture, and the candy looks like sand. The maple candy with sugar and glucose is transparent, clear in taste, and hard in texture, and it won’t spread out when bitten.
The international standard for hard candy is transparent and has a moisture content of less than 2%.We can reduce the water content of pure maple syrup to less than 2% and reach the high temperature required to produce pure maple syrup hard candy, but it usually becomes opaque within 2 weeks. This is determined by the characteristics of maple syrup.
In the production of hard candies, it is necessary to avoid sugar melting and crystallization at the same time. This is the effect of adding appropriate amounts of sugar and glucose.
If you look at the ingredient label of any hard candy not only maple hard candy, you will find that there must be sugar and glucose ingredients.
There are some maple hard candies sold on the market with a "Made with 100% pure maple syrup" label on the packaging. If it is a transparent hard candy, but the ingredient label does not indicate sugar and glucose, it must be deliberately ignored. If sugar and glucose are on its ingredient label, but still writing "Made with 100% pure maple syrup" on the package violates Canadian labeling regulations and definitely will mislead consumers. Some online stores selling maple hard candy do not clearly indicate the ingredients of the product, but only write "made with 100% pure maple syrup". This sentence itself is not wrong when the candy does contain maple syrup, But it will seriously mislead consumers and make them believe that the candy is made of maple syrup as the only raw material.