Carbohydrate-rich Foods

Carbohydrate foods are of plant origin. EXCEPT for lactose, which is present as 24% of
energy in cow’s milk.

A substantial amount of energy is required to enable the plant to transform the simple
molecules of carbon dioxide and water to the more complex carbohydrate molecules and this
is obtained from sunlight.

When we eat carbohydrates, this process is, in effect, put into reverse to release energy for
use by our bodies  See chapter 8

About one-third of the total dietary intake of carbohydrates in Britain consists of sucrose or
glucose syrup, about one-twentieth is lactose and the remainder is starch and dietary fibre
(non-starch polysaccharides, NSPs). These proportions may vary between individuals.

Some children obtain almost half their calories from sugars.

To evaluate these foods in terms of nutrition, their carbohydrate contents are also shown in
terms of per cent energy content.
Sources of sugar

Monosaccharides

Glucose and fructose are the only monosaccharides present to any extent in an average diet.

They occur naturally in honey in roughly equal amounts

And as industrially inverted products of sucrose or hydrolysed starch in ‘glucose syrup’ or

purified fructose which are extensively used by food manufacturers for sweetening their
products.

1. Honey

The nectar of flowers from which bees make honey consists largely of sucrose.

During its passage through the bee’s honey sac, and during further activity by bees in the
hive, the sucrose is hydrolysed by enzymes into glucose and fructose and the product –
honey.

Honey: 20% water and about 76% glucose and fructose

The balance is made up of a small amount of unconverted sucrose, some other minor
disaccharides and trivial quantities of minerals, acids, vitamins, and flavour-producing
substances.

The very variable flavour of honey depends essentially on the flowers from which the nectar
was collected.

Honey contains over 200 different substances, but honey lovers are able to distinguish honey
derived mainly from clover, for example, from that originating from other flowers.
Uses of honey:

Although honey is now mainly eaten as a spread like jam, it has been used as a sweetener
since ancient times and it was the only sweetening agent used until sucrose became available
from sugar cane, and later sugar beet.

It was also used for making the alcoholic drink mead, which is made by fermenting diluted
honey with yeast.

Preservation of honey: Honey keeps well because the water content is too low (i.e. its
osmotic load too high) to permit growth of bacteria or fungi.

Nutritional function: act as a source of energy but its flavour and sweetness are very
attractive to most people, at least for parts of their diets

Manufacture: It is labour-intensive and expensive to make honey, with fluctuations in

specific gravity and production which result from the weather and from diseases among bees.

Adulteration: Unfortunately, it is easy to extend limited honey supplies by extending it with

glucose syrup.

Although this adulteration is detectable, and illegal, it is also possible to provide bees with
commercial sugar, from which they will make honey in place of nectar.

This practice is used routinely to a small degree by beekeepers at the end of the season, as a
food for the bees, but it should not contribute to commercially available honey.

2. Glucose and fructose syrup

A sweet, syrupy mixture of glucose with other sugars and dextrins which is used extensively
by the food industry.
Produced by the hydrolysis of starchy materials, such as maize, with dilute acids or by
enzymes

The composition of glucose syrup (or corn syrup as it is known in North America) depends
upon the extent to which the hydrolysis occurs (i.e., upon how far the amylose and
amylopectin molecules in the starch are broken down)

The degree of hydrolysis can be controlled to give a product which is largely glucose or a
more viscous syrup containing substantial amounts of dextrin (i.e. partly hydrolysed amylose
and amylopectin molecules).

The more completely hydrolysed syrups, which contain a larger proportion of sugars, are
sweeter than those containing substantial amounts of dextrins and they are widely used in the
manufacture of sweet confectionery and cakes.

If fully hydrolysed glucose syrups are treated with the enzyme glucose isomerase up to half
the glucose may be converted to fructose.

The product is sweeter than glucose syrup because fructose is the sweetest of the sugars.

It is claimed that, in addition to its greater sweetness, fructose has the effect of enhancing
fruit flavours and ‘high-fructose syrups’ are widely used in soft drinks and jams.
Sucrose, cane sugar or beet sugar

Ordinary table sugar, whether produced from sugar cane (which can only be grown in
tropical countries) or sugar beet (which can be grown in temperate zones) is almost pure
sucrose.

There is no difference between the sugar obtained from sugar beet and that obtained from
sugar cane. Both provide only energy.

History:

Sugar has been produced commercially from sugar beet for over 150 years. About 30 per cent
of the total world production of sugar and 60% of British sugar is produced from sugar beet.

Sugar cane has been chewed by children in tropical countries for centuries, but it only
became available to the rest of the world following the exploration of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.

Its cultivation, particularly in the West Indies, had important economic and political impacts.

It impacted eating habits (and tooth decay) from its happy conjunction with the arrival of tea,
in adding new culinary possibilities to cakes and confectionery, and by providing a cheap
source of fermentable material for beermaking.

The soft-drink industry is more recent.

Production of raw sugar:

Sugar cane is a type of giant grass which resembles bamboo and may grow to a height of 4 or
5 m with a diameter of 3–5 cm.

The sugar, which amounts to about 15% of the weight of the cane, is found in a soft fibre in
the interior of the cane.

From 3 to 8 tons of sugar are normally obtained from an acre of sugar cane.

Extraction of sugar:

 The sugar is extracted from the cane by crushing and spraying with water.
 The solution obtained contains about 13 per cent sugar and 3 per cent impurities, the
remainder being water.
 This solution is purified, and the clear solution obtained is concentrated by
evaporation under reduced pressure until a mixture of sugar crystals and ‘mother
liquor’ is obtained.
 The crystals are separated from the mother liquor by spinning the mixture very
quickly in large drums.
  These drums have perforated sides through which the mother liquor, called molasses,
is forced by centrifugal action, leaving the raw sugar behind.
 Molasses is used for the manufacture of rum and industrial alcohol.

Sugar beet:

The sugar content of sugar beet is similar to that of sugar cane, but only about 2 tons of sugar
can be obtained from an acre of sugar beet.

The sugar is extracted from the shredded beet by steeping in hot water; it diffuses through the
cell walls into the water, leaving behind most of the non-sugar solids.

Batteries of specially designed diffusers are used to ensure that the maximum amount of
sugar is removed by the minimum quantity of water.

The solution obtained contains about 14 per cent sugar and 4 per cent impurities, the
remainder being water.

It is treated to remove impurities and the clear solution obtained is concentrated by

evaporation under reduced pressure to give sugar crystals and molasses which are separated
by centrifuging as described for cane sugar.

The raw sugar obtained is very similar to that produced from cane sugar but has a less
attractive taste and smell, by virtue of the different impurities.
Sugar refining

Raw sugar, whether obtained from beet or cane, contains about 96% sucrose.

It consists essentially of sugar crystals coated with a layer of molasses.

o The first step in the refining process is to mix the raw sugar with sugar syrup to
produce a stiff, semi-solid mixture of syrup and crystals.
o This is centrifuged and the syrup is forced out, leaving the sugar crystals within the
centrifuge.
o The sugar crystals are then washed with water to remove the adhering syrup.
o A considerable amount of sugar is contained in the syrup and wash liquors from the
centrifuge, and this is recovered by evaporation of the water under reduced pressure.
o The sugar crystals are next dissolved in water and treated with milk of lime
(historically, crushed eggshells) and carbon dioxide to remove the bulk of the
impurities.
o The remainder are removed by allowing the solution to percolate through a deep bed
of charcoal which removes coloured impurities to produce a colourless liquid known
as fine liquor.
o All that remains to be done is to concentrate the fine liquor by evaporating the water
and crystallize the sucrose to produce uniform crystals of the correct size.
o The evaporation is carried out at reduced pressure in steam-heated ‘vacuum pans’, so
that the water can be removed at a temperature much below the normal boiling point
of the solution; this prevents any discoloration of the sugar

The crystallization process produces a suspension of sugar crystals in syrup.

Spinning in centrifugal machines removes most of the syrup, the remainder being removed by
spraying with hot water and centrifuging.

The syrup and washings contain about 40% of the sugar originally present in the fine liquor
and most of this is recovered by decolorizing and recrystallizing. This can be repeated
several.

Eventually, however, the colour and quality of the sugar recovered from the syrup do not
conform to the high standards required. When this happens, the syrup is used for the
manufacture of golden syrup or is concentrated and crystallized to give a soft brown sugar.
Caster sugar:

Caster sugar is made in the same way as granulated sugar, but the crystallization procedure is
modified so that much smaller crystals are obtained.

This is done by using a larger number of nuclei or by preventing the crystals from growing to
granulated sugar size.

Caster sugar is also obtained as a by-product of the production of granulated sugar and it is
separated from it by sieving the dry sugar.

The particle size in icing sugar is even smaller than in caster sugar and it is made by
pulverizing granulated sugar in special mills.

Brown sugar:

Brown sugar is obtained by crystallizing the syrup obtained at the end of the refining process.

The sugar obtained is slightly sticky because of the presence of a thin coating of mother
liquor on each crystal.

Genuine demerara sugar is a golden-brown, slightly moist sugar produced in this way in
Demerara, Guyana.

London demerara is a substitute made by coating white sugar crystals with molasses.

Muscovado (or Barbados sugar) has a higher molasses content than demerara sugar and a
‘treacly’ flavour.

Lump sugar is made by crystallizing the fine liquor in such a way that crystals of two
different sizes are obtained: the larger crystals give the characteristic sparkle of lump sugar,
and the smaller ones bind the crystals together.
Foodstuff manufactured from sugar

Sugar occurs naturally in large amounts in fruits and in some specific plants but it is also
present, sometimes in surprisingly large amounts, in many manufactured foods, where it has a
variety of functions including taste and texture.

Sugar confectionery, chocolate, and jam

The term ‘sugar confectionery’ is used to describe the large range of confectionery we
commonly call “sweets”.

Examples of sugar confectionery:

Boiled sweets toffees and caramels, the filling used as centres for chocolates, marshmallow,
nougat, pastilles and gums

This great variety of tooth-decay accelerators have one thing in common: they are all
produced by controlled crystallization of sucrose from a supersaturated solution

The differences that exist between them depend upon

o water content
o the extent to which crystallization of sucrose has occurred
o the presence of fat or milk, which enables emulsions to be formed
o flavouring agents

When a concentrated solution of sucrose – a syrup – is heated, the temperature at which it

will boil depends upon the amount of water present in the solution, as shown in Fig. 9.1.
The water content of a sugar solution can be accurately determined from a knowledge of its
boiling point.

If boiling is allowed to continue, the concentration of the solution increases as water

evaporates and the boiling point increases.

Soft sweets, such as toffee, are cooked to a lower temperature than hard sweets such as
butterscotch or boiled sweets.

Sticky sweets stick to teeth and cause even more decay than boiled ones.

1. Boiled sweets

These are traditionally made by boiling sugar solutions with acidic substances to produce a
certain amount of inversion.

Boiling is continued until the temperature exceeds 150°C, by which time almost all the water
has been driven off and, on cooling, the mass solidifies as a glass-like solid – the familiar
boiled sweet.

At the end of the cooling period only a small amount of water (a few per cent) is present.
The glucose produced by the inversion process prevents the sucrose from crystallizing when
the mass is cooled down. It is said to ‘cut the grain’.

Glucose itself does not crystallize easily from water and in a mixed solution of glucose and
sucrose the glucose inhibits the crystallization of the sucrose.

The final product is a supersaturated solution of sucrose, with smaller amounts of glucose and
fructose, in a very small quantity of water.

The amount of invert-sugar produced during the boiling must be carefully controlled because
if too much is present the product will be prone to absorb water from the air and become
sticky.

[ Invert sugar, a mixture of glucose (dextrose) and fructose produced from sugar (sucrose) by
application of heat and an acid “sugar doctor,” such as cream of tartar or citric acid, affects
the sweetness, solubility, and amount of crystallization in candy making.]

This is because the fructose in the invert-sugar is hygroscopic - tending to absorb moisture
from the air.

On the other hand, if too little invert sugar is produced it will be insufficient to prevent
crystallization of the sucrose.

About 10–15% invert-sugar is required to give a non-sticky non-crystalline product.

Any acidic substance may be added to produce the inversion, and cream of tartar (potassium
hydrogen tartrate) is commonly used.

The amount of acid used depends upon several factors, including the hardness of the water,
but it is quite small and, in the case of cream of tartar, is in the region of 0.15–0.25% of the
weight of sugar used.

Boiled sweets are made commercially by heating a syrup of sucrose and glucose syrup which
prevents crystallization of the sucrose in the same way as invert-sugar.

The amount of glucose syrup used can amount to 30–40%, but the product is not hygroscopic
because it contains no fructose.

Glucose syrup is less sweet than sucrose or invert-sugar and so the boiled sweets produced in
this way are also less sweet.
In addition, the dextrin in the glucose syrup is said to impart a certain toughness to the sweets
and can sometimes cause cloudiness.

2. Fondant

This is the creamy material used for filling soft centred chocolates and by biscuit and cake
manufacturers for decorative purposes.

It consists essentially of minute sugar crystals surrounded by saturated sugar syrup.

Fondant is made by boiling a sugar solution and adding glucose syrup or an inverting agent,
as in the case of boiled sweets.

No attempt is made to boil off all the water, however, and the mixture is only boiled to 115–
120°C compared with 150–165°C in the case of boiled sweets.

The syrupy solution obtained is cooled quickly to about 38°C by running onto a rotating
water-cooled drum from which it falls into a beater.

Here it is agitated violently to induce crystallization which occurs suddenly to produce a very
large number of tiny crystals.

3. Fudge

This is simply fondant containing added milk solids, fat and chocolate solids which are
suspended in the sugar syrup and give it added solidity.
 4. Toffee

Main ingredients for toffee: Fat, milk, sugar and glucose syrup

It consists essentially of a dispersion of minute globules of fat in a supersaturated sugar

solution.

Sugar:

Various grades of sugar are used, depending upon the recipe, from refined granulated sugar to
raw sugars and treacles (dark thick syrup -molasses) , which contribute characteristic flavours
to the product.

As in the case of boiled sweets, sugars other than sucrose must be present to prevent graining.

In home-made toffee, an acidic inverting agent such as vinegar or citric acid may be used to
produce some invert-sugar from sucrose, but in commercial practice it is usual to employ
glucose syrup to prevent graining.

Milk:

The milk used makes an important contribution to the flavour and it is added as condensed
milk, either full-cream or skimmed.

The characteristic colour of toffee is largely due to caramelization of the milk solids during
cooking.

In addition, the casein of the milk acts as an emulsifying agent.

Butter and various vegetable fats are used in the manufacture of toffee, and emulsifying
agents, such as glyceryl monostearate or lecithin, may also be incorporated, if insufficient
milk solids and butter are present, to aid in the dispersion of the fat and produce a stable
emulsion.

In toffee manufacture, the ingredients are boiled together until the temperature reaches the
required level.

The temperature attained in the boiling process largely determines the consistency of the
toffee produced because this depends, among other things, on the amount of water in the
toffee.

Very hard toffee such as butterscotch is heated to 146–154°C, which gives a water content of
3–5 per cent.

Ordinary toffees and caramels are heated to 118–132°C when the mixture contains 6–12 per
cent water.

Toffee and fudge are made from similar materials and they both contain about 10 per cent
water.

BUT toffee, like boiled sweets, consists of sugar syrup surrounding other ingredients such as
fat and milk whereas in fudge, as in fondant, part of the sugar is present in crystalline form.

Toffee is in fact a thick, supersaturated syrup and not a solid at all, and this is why it has such
a tough and chewy consistency.

There are innumerable varieties of toffees but in all of them there is a common background
‘caramel taste’.

This flavour is produced by caramelization or breakdown of some of the sugar molecules

which occurs whenever carbohydrates are heated.

During toffee-making a reaction also occurs between the heated sugars and the proteins
present in the milk solids and this produces a brown colour. A browning reaction of this type
(called the Maillard reaction or non-enzymic browning reaction) occurs whenever
carbohydrates are heated with proteins.

5. Chocolate

The essential ingredients of chocolate are cocoa, cocoa-butter and sugar.

Cocoa and cocoa-butter:

The cocoa and cocoa-butter are both obtained from cocoa-beans which grow in pods on cacao
trees in tropical countries.
The pods are egg-shaped, about 20 cm long, and about 7–10 cm in diameter. Each pod
contains 20 to 40 beans embedded in a soft, white, starchy pulp.

The pods are split open and the beans, with adhering pulp, are scraped out and allowed to
ferment for several days.

A yeast fungus grows on the pulp and it liquefies owing to fermentation to alcohol.

The liquid formed is allowed to drain away from the beans which during the process change
in colour from their original light violet to dark brown.

After drying in the sun the beans are ready for shipment to the cocoa manufacturers.

In the manufacture of cocoa and chocolate, the beans are first roasted in revolving drums and
are then broken into small pieces by passing through special rollers.

The husk is removed, leaving behind the small pieces of roasted bean which are known as
nibs.

This roasting process is of great importance because it is at this stage that the characteristic
chocolate flavour and aroma develop as a consequence of Maillard-type browning reactions
occurring between carbohydrates and proteins present.

The nibs contain about 50 per cent of a fat known as cocoa butter and during the next
operation, in which the nibs are finely ground in mills, the heat generated melts the cocoa
butter to produce a viscous brown liquid as product.

When the liquid, which is a dispersion of cocoa in cocoa butter is cooled, a brown solid
known as cocoa mass is obtained.

For the production of cocoa a proportion of the cocoa butter is squeezed out in powerful
hydraulic presses.

The residue, containing 20–30 per cent cocoa butter, is finely ground and sold as cocoa
powder.

It contains about 2 per cent theobromine and 0.1 per cent caffeine; these compounds are
closely related alkaloids with properties similar to caffeine.

The bitterness of cocoa and chocolate is a function of a range of antioxidant phenolic

compounds also present.
Milk proteins bind to the phenolic compounds, reducing bitterness and blocking the
absorption from the gut.

Chocolate is made by mixing cocoa mass with sugar, cocoa butter and, for milk chocolate,
dried milk or condensed milk.

The mixing is carried out in melangeurs, in which massive rollers rotate in contact with a
heated plate.

The mixture then passes to a refining machine where it is pinched between rollers revolving
at different speeds.

To complete the process, the molten chocolate is then ‘conched’ for a period of up to 24
hours.

In the conching process heavy rollers subject the chocolate to severe mechanical treatment
and blend all the ingredients into a uniform velvety consistency.

Chocolate for coating purposes, such as is used in covering ‘centres’ to make individual
chocolates or in covering biscuits, contains a larger proportion of cocoa butter than ordinary
block chocolate.

The purpose of this is to increase the fluidity of chocolate when warm.

Chocolate-coated goods are made by passing the centre or biscuit to be coated through a
curtain of molten chocolate in a machine called an enrober.

Conversion of liquid chocolate to the familiar solid chocolate bar is not simply a matter of
pouring the chocolate into moulds and allowing it to cool.

The fats present in cocoa butter can solidify in six different forms, or polymorphs, with
different melting points.

One of the polymorphs melts at 33.8°C and when only this form is present in solid chocolate
it will be smooth and glossy and will easily melt in the mouth.

To produce as much of this polymorph as possible chocolate is subjected to a special heat

treatment process called tempering.
The molten chocolate is cooled until it just begins to solidify and then it is reheated to just
below the melting point of the desirable polymorph.

The chocolate is then stirred at this temperature, so that a high proportion of the fat will
solidify in the preferred polymorphic form when the chocolate is finally moulded or used for
coating.

If chocolate is incorrectly tempered, or if it is subjected to a series of temperature changes

(e.g. if left in a shop window or a car) it may develop a white coating or ‘bloom’.

This may look like mould growth but it is in fact a harmless coating of fat crystals.

Molten chocolate is such a capricious substance that it is difficult to handle in the kitchen
where precise temperature measurement and control is not easy.

For this reason, chocolate-flavoured cake coating substitutes are available which contain
vegetable fat in place of cocoa butter.

Vegetable fat solidifies in only one form and hence the problems caused by the
polymorphism of cocoa butter fats do not arise.

Chocolate is a nutritious food and a small bar (100 g) of milk chocolate provides about 9 g of
protein and 220 mg of calcium – approximately one sixth and one-third, respectively, of the
reference nutrient intake (RNI) of these nutrients for a moderately active man.

It would also supply about one sixth of his energy requirements and 10–15 per cent of the
RNI of iron, thiamin and riboflavin.

The cafffeine content of cocoa is similar to that of coffee.

There has been recent interest in the high content of antioxidant phenolic compounds in
chocolate. These compounds (mainly catechins and epicatechins) are extensively metabolized
in the gut but may have biological actions.

Adding milk protein binds phenolics, masking the bitter taste of chocolate and blocking their
absorption.

The high sugar content of chocolate and its sticky texture leads to prolonged contact of teeth
with sugar – especially if consumed between meals. Thus, chocolate has contributed
considerably to dental caries and loss of teeth.
 6. Jam

Jam is made by boiling fruit with sugar solutions and is essentially a gel or semi-solid mass
containing pulped or whole fruit.

A gel is really a very viscous solution, or dispersion, which possesses some of the attributes,
such as elasticity, of a solid.

The gel is formed from the sugar, the acids present in the fruit and the polysaccharide pectin
(see p. 97).

Jam contains about 67 per cent dissolved sugar and this high concentration inhibits the
growth of moulds and yeasts because the water activity (see p. 275) is too low (i.e. the
osmotic content is too high) to permit their multiplication.

The quantity of pectin and acid in fruit for jam making is of great importance because gel
formation only occurs when the concentrations of sugar and pectin and the pH of the mixture
lie within certain limits.

Some fruits, such as currants, damsons, gooseberries, lemons and bitter oranges, are rich in
both acid and pectin and can easily be made into jam.

Others, such as strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and cherries contain little pectin and
some must be added before jam can be made successfully from them.

A simple way of doing this is to add another fruit rich in pectin and acid, for example, apple
or a concentrated pectin preparation (see p. 97).

As the percentage of pectin in a jam increases so does the firmness of the gel produced on
cooling.

A satisfactory gel is obtained with about 1 per cent pectin, although for a given pH and sugar
content the firmness of the gel is influenced by the ‘quality’ of the pectin as well as by the
quantity present.

As we have already seen, pectin consists of large numbers of simpler molecules connected
together to form a long thread-like molecule.

The length of a pectin molecule depends upon its source.

During gel formation the long molecules link loosely together to form a three-dimensional
network which gives the gel its stability.

If the pectin molecules are too short the gel may lack strength and be runny or soft.

Anyone who has tried to make jam at home knows that the jam obtained from ripe fruit is not
as good as that from fruit which is almost ripe.

This is because pectin will not form a satisfactory gel until the pH is lowered to about 3.5 and
unripe fruit is usually more acidic than ripe fruit.

To decrease the pH of a jam mixture an acidic fruit juice, such as lemon juice, may be added
or a small amount of citric acid, malic acid or cream of tartar.

A low pH during the cooking period may cause inversion of too much sucrose, and also
hydrolyse the pectin to some extent.

As both these changes are detrimental the pH adjustment is often carried out at the end of the
cooking period.

When fruit is boiled with sugar, a certain amount of inversion occurs (see p. 91), and this is
of the utmost importance because invert-sugar prevents the crystallization of the sugar in the
jam when it is kept.

Too much invert-sugar, however, is detrimental because it reduces the strength of the gel and
may cause the jam to set to a honey-like mass on keeping.

Another reason why fruit used in jam making should not be over-ripe is that pectic
substances, particularly protopectin, from which pectin is formed during jam making, are
present in maximum amount just before the fruit is ripe.

If jam factories could make jam only when supplies of fresh fruit were available they would
be able to work for only a very short period each year.

Moreover, the great amount of fruit harvested during these periods would be far too large to
be made quickly into jam by the existing number of jam factories.

To overcome this difficulty, large amounts of preserved fruits are used.

The method of preserving the fruit is very simple; it is kept submerged in a weak solution of
sulphur dioxide in water.
Fruit can be preserved in this way either before or after cooking.

In practice, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are preserved raw, whereas plums,
currants and gooseberries are usually preserved as a cooked pulp because sulphur dioxide
tends to toughen the skins of the uncooked fruit.

The fruit is bleached by the sulphur dioxide during the preserving but the colour returns when
it is cooked.

Almost all the sulphur dioxide is driven off during cooking and the finished jam must not
contain more than 100 parts per million.

When jam is made at home, the fruit is first cooked until tender.

Pectin is extracted during this process and the length of the cooking period depends upon the
fruit being used.

Cooking is complete when a sample of the fruit forms a coherent pectin clot when allowed to
stand for a few minutes with several times its volume of methylated spirit.

The clot should be strong enough to withstand pouring from one vessel to another without
breaking.

When a satisfactory pectin clot is obtained, the sugar should be added and the mixture boiled
as rapidly as possible.

The duration of the boiling period will depend on the fruit used and the size and shape of the
pan; it varies from about 5 to about 20 minutes.

A shallow pan, in which a large surface area of the jam is exposed for evaporation, is best
because this permits rapid evaporation.

The boiling period is usually complete when the temperature of the boiling mixtures reaches
104°C.

The exact temperature at which boiling should be stopped depends upon the acidity and
pectin content of the fruit, however, both of which influence the setting properties of the jam.

Jam making is carried out commercially in a much more scientific way than this.

To begin with, the recipe is adjusted to give the correct amounts of sugar and pectin with the
particular fruit being used and pH is also carefully controlled.
Precooked pulp is often used and the boiling is usually carried out in open pans holding about
180 L of jam.

The boiling time is very short and seldom exceeds 10 minutes.

This short boiling time preserves the gel-forming properties of the pectin and also keeps the
amount of invert-sugar formed to between 25 and 40 per cent.

The time of boiling, and hence the amount of invert-sugar formed, can be controlled by
altering the amount of water used. When the temperature reaches 104°C, the end of the
boiling period is imminent.

The boiling point is really an indication of the concentration of the solution being boiled, and
this can be more accurately determined by measuring the refractive index with a
refractometer.

From a knowledge of the refractive index, the concentration of soluble solids in the jam can
be calculated.

To the soluble solids are added sugar and pectin together with sugars, acids and other solids
extracted from the fruit. The soluble solid content varies from jam to jam but is usually about
70 per cent.