Time: 12:05–12:55
Location: Room 205, Babcock Hall
Coffee / tea will be served starting ~11:45 outside room 205
This seminar will be presented by Damielle Hieber.
ABSTRACT
Freeze dried candy is a trend that is growing in popularity. It’s often sold through cottage certified sellers at markets or online sales. Freeze dried fruits and vegetables also exist, but candy exhibits a large change in expansion and texture that is not found in fruits and vegetables. Currently they aren’t commercially sold, likely due to the fragile nature of the candy and expense of freeze dryers. However, individuals are processing commercial candies such as taffy and Skittles in a home freeze dryer or vacuum oven and selling the resulting candies. Due to the newness of the technique application, there is a literature gap on what this processing does to candy. Preliminary understanding shows us that freeze dried candy isn’t freeze dried at all, but vacuum oven puffed. This is due to the lack of freezable water present in candy. The biggest mystery of freeze dried candy is why it expands in the freeze dryer or vacuum oven. Our work looks at various commercial candies and classifies their types of expansion according to candy type. After finding a wide range of expansion and textural changes, a simple candy system was proposed to study glass transition, water content, and air size and distribution. The research extends into a study that examines the physio-chemical attributes of the candies and compares them to the expansion.
