Popping candy makes a really fun addition to chocolate bars! It will fizz and crackle in the mouth. This vegan version is uncoated, so is best used as an inclusion within fat-based products such as chocolate. 

What Is Popping Candy?

Sugar and maltose are melted, pressurised with carbon dioxide and then cooled, which traps the gas inside the sugar as it sets. The crystals do nothing at all until moisture reaches them. Then the sugar dissolves, the pressure escapes and you get the crackle. This is the plain version: uncoated, unflavoured, uncoloured and made without lactose, so it suits vegetarian and vegan work and is halal.

How to Use Vegan Popping Candy

Uncoated crystals need to be kept away from water, so they belong in fat. Chocolate is the natural home. Fold them into tempered couverture at the end, around 30 to 50g a kilo, and get the bar into the
mould before the chocolate sets around them. They behave the same way in a high-fat praline filling, in a moulded bar base, or pressed into the foot of a dipped bonbon. Keep them out of ganache, fruit
purees and creams: anything with free water in it will silence them within the hour. If you need popping candy in a wetter application, our cocoa butter coated version is the one to choose.

Troubleshooting

Humidity is the whole story with this product. Store the closed bottle dry, ideally at 60 to 65% relative humidity, and when you open it for production the specification asks for 22 to 24C with the
room at 35 to 40%. Unopened it keeps for a year; once a bottle is open, use it the same day to keep the pop at full strength. If a batch has gone quiet it has taken up moisture, and it will not come
back.

Pairings and Ideas

Popping candy is a texture rather than a flavour, so it can go anywhere the fat protects it. A few ideas to try:

• Folded through a tempered dark chocolate bar with freeze-dried raspberry
• In the base of a moulded bonbon, under a caramel
• Pressed into the foot of a dipped truffle so it crackles at the last bite
• Mixed into a gianduja or a nut praline slab
• Scattered over chocolate-coated honeycomb or rocky road
• Set into a chocolate bar mould with our mini marshmallows