Shine, Snap and Crystal: teacher key

How Candy Is Made, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. From microbes in a cacao pod to the crystals that make chocolate snap: fermenting and roasting beans, cooked sugar, gummies, cotton candy, tooth damage and a hard fact about cocoa farming.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Where do the microbes that ferment cocoa come from?
   • From inside the intact pod
   • From outside, such as hands, insects and air (answer)
   • From the roasting step
2. What happens if freshly tempered chocolate is put in a freezer?
   • Unstable crystal forms grow and spoil the shine and snap (answer)
   • It becomes smoother
   • It turns into milk chocolate
3. Why must a candy thermometer be checked in boiling water first?
   • A thermometer that reads wrong ruins the batch (answer)
   • Boiling water cleans it
   • It sets the syrup
4. Why does hard candy snap instead of crumbling?
   • Its sugar is not arranged in crystals (answer)
   • It has no sugar
   • It is cooked in cold water
5. In this passage, what does unstable mean for a crystal form?
   • Likely to change and spoil the result (answer)
   • Very strong
   • Too large

Words

• anaerobic: without air
• tempering: heat and cool
• conching: long stirring
• nib: bean meat
• enzymes: helper proteins