Hot Sugar, Cool Candy: teacher key

How Candy Is Made, grade 5 edition, written for 5th grade. How a candy maker uses heat, trays, pans and spinning bowls to turn sugar and cacao beans into treats.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What decides whether a candy is soft like fudge or crunchy like a lollipop?
   • How hot the syrup is cooked (answer)
   • The color of the dye
   • The size of the tray
2. How did Europeans treat sugar long ago?
   • It was cheap and everywhere
   • It was a luxury for rich people (answer)
   • It was only for animals
3. Why are cacao beans fermented, dried and roasted?
   • Fresh beans taste very bitter and harsh (answer)
   • They are too sweet
   • They need to be blue
4. What is the nib?
   • The shell
   • A kind of pan
   • The meat of the bean (answer)
5. Why is cornstarch used in trays?
   • It keeps the shape pressed into it (answer)
   • It adds a sour taste
   • It makes candy cold
6. How is cotton candy spun?
   • Melted sugar flies out of a bowl with tiny holes (answer)
   • Sugar is frozen in a mold
   • Gelatin is whipped

Words

• cacao: chocolate tree
• fermented: changed by germs
• depositor: squirting machine
• nib: bean meat
• glaze: shiny coating