Every great wedding ends with two things: a lot of dancing and something sweet. As far as desserts go, while a tiered wedding cake is a tried and true classic, many couples often want to try something different to close out their special day. And whether you’re looking to add more to the dessert table or you want to give guests a fun, edible favor, a candy buffet is a delicious addition to any reception.
Luckily, there are ways to come up with unique candy buffet ideas on a budget, and we’re here to help you figure out how to do just that. Here are the best tips for creating a budget-friendly candy bar at any wedding.
Candy making is the preparation and cookery of candies and sugar confections. Candy making includes the preparation of many various candies, such as hard candies, jelly beans, gumdrops, taffy, liquor ice, cotton candy, chocolates and chocolate truffles, fudge, caramel candy, and toffee.
Candy is made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a syrup, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize. The type of candy depends on the ingredients and how long the mixture is boiled. Candy comes in a wide variety of textures, from soft and chewy to hard and brittle. A chocolatier is a person who prepares confectionery from chocolate, and is distinct from a chocolate maker, who creates chocolate from cacao beans and other ingredients. Cotton candy is a form of spun sugar often prepared using a cotton candy machine.
The technology for candy making has generally kept pace with the technology of the times. For example, when steam power became common in textile and engineering factories, steam power was also used in candy factories.
Candy making and consumption increased greatly during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Candy had previously been made by hand, either occasionally at home or by specialists in small, local businesses. Increased mechanization caused prices to drop and production to increase.
Hard candy, also referred to as boiled sweet, is a candy prepared from one or more syrups. After a syrup boiled to this temperature cools, it is called hard candy, since it becomes stiff and brittle as it approaches room temperature. Hard candy recipes variously call for syrups of sucrose, glucose, or fructose. To add color, food coloring is sometimes used.
Soft candy, also known as candy floss, is a form of spun sugar. Colored sugar or separate sugar and food coloring are used to provide color.
Chocolatiering, the preparing of confections from chocolate, involves the techniques of tempering, molding and sculpting. Tempering is a heat treatment method performed on chocolate involving heating and cooling the chocolate to result in desired characteristics like shininess of the chocolate or ‘snap’, the way it breaks. Molding is a design technique used in making chocolate pieces that are of a certain shape by taking liquid chocolate and pouring it into a mold and letting it harden.