Reader Questions: Candy Texture

Greetings! My father's family has been making panocha for generations (we're a founding family in Santa Barbara, CA). My tia Blanche had the recipe in her head, but ended up with Alzheimer's and recently passed away. I'm not sure if any of her daughters or granddaughters ever wrote down the recipe, so I've been searching the net for some to try. The Panocha aka Penuche that has been traditional to our family is not soft and chewy like fudge, but somewhat crisp and crumbley with a grainy texture, more like semi-hard brown sugar. Is your recipe like this, or more soft and creamy like a traditional fudge?

TEA,

Most penuche recipes I've come across are very similar, so even though my family competes for the smoothest possible candy and your memories are of crumbly penocha, they could be from the same ingredients! All else equal, candy textures are determined by three factors: how hot we cook the candy, how quickly we cool it back down, and then how much we stir it. To shed light on why the same basic recipe can produce both grainy or smooth, soft or crisp, we need to talk science for a sec.

Candy Temperature and Hardness

When we cook candy, we're dissolving sugar into a liquid solution and then boiling the water out until it reaches the hardness we want. The longer and hotter we cook it, the less water remains and the harder the resulting candy. My family's recipe calls for a "soft ball" temperature of 236 degrees, while the crispness you describe sounds like a hotter "hard crack" of around 300 degrees. (That's the same temperature used for peanut brittle, but not as hard as toffee.) Same ingredients, but a very different result due to the cooking temperatures.

Crystallization and Smoothness

Because we're heating our candy so hot, we actually coax the liquid solution to dissolve more sugars than it could normally hold. The sugar syrup becomes supersaturated, and is just waiting for any excuse to crystallize and turn some of that sugar into solid form, i.e. candy. How and when it crystallizes determines whether the candy ends up smooth or grainy. Are you still with me?

We control crystallization by how long we let the syrup cool before stirring it, and how vigorously we stir it. Crystals generally don't start forming until we stir. They're shy that way. If we don't stir, they don't form. Once the stirring begins, vigorous stirring makes for smaller crystals and smoother candy. High temperature syrups form coarse crystals, resulting in a grainy candy. Syrups at cooler temps form finer, smoother candies.

It follows then that you'll get the smoothest candy by letting the candy cool drastically before even touching it, then stirring it as if your life depended on it. If you're seeking the crumbly texture you remember, don't let it cool as long before stirring.

"Homework"

I didn't innately know all this about candy. Bits and pieces were learned from my family, through making many mistakes and from studying On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. I can't recommend that book enough for people who have an interest in the science of cooking. It was an invaluable aid for this post, helping to bring together all my life experience and put into words.

I hope this helps in your quest to recreate the penuche/panocha you remember from Tia Blanche!