Marketing researches show that consumption of marmalade in Russia in physical terms is about 6% of the total market of non-chocolates. Rich fruit or berry taste, bright color, pleasant aroma and special texture - these are the indicators for which we love this type of jelly-like dessert product.
When you want to pamper yourself with a sweet, often a dilemma arises: what to eat - a piece of chocolate or a gummy wedge? It is difficult to make a choice, since it all depends on taste preferences, food traditions and, of course, mood. The resourceful Japanese have found a very successful and wise decision. Tokyo-based confectionery FabCafe, known for its gourmet desserts, has organized original “sweet promotions”. On Valentine's Day, women were encouraged to create chocolate copies of their faces and give them to loved ones. Men are not looking for easy ways. On the eve of the holiday, which is called White Day and is celebrated on March 14, those who want to surprise their ladies go to the office in the Shibuya area, where they can create a three-dimensional computer model of their body using a scanner. In this form, FabCafe confectioners make a miniature copy of gummies. And the gift is ready - a figurine of a real samurai in a marmalade 3D version.
The progenitor of marmalade is the oriental sweetness of Turkish delight, which is a honey infusion of fruits with the addition of rose water and starch. In a modern version, marmalade looks a little different. The product is made on the basis of sugar, molasses and gelling agents with the addition of flavoring and food additives.
In Spain and Portugal, the word marmelo means quince marshmallow (it is from this fruit that marmalade is made there). “Pest” from the Pakistanis is a plastic marmalade. Residents of European countries position this sweetness as "hard jam". In the language of specialists involved in the production of confectionery, marmalade is called "jelly candies".
According to the standard cooking technology, marmalade is a condensed evaporated juice or fruit puree from the pulp. When boiled with sugar or molasses, the fruit gives a mass that solidifies to a solid state. Thickening is achieved through the use of certain types of fruits that are rich in pectin, or through the introduction of additional gelling agents.
Depending on the combination of the components used, two basic types of marmalade are distinguished: fruit and berry and jelly.
Fruit and berry marmalade is prepared by boiling well-grated fruit or berry puree with granulated sugar. The gelling base consists of pectin, which is found in apple or stone fruit puree. Ordinary jelly candies are sprinkled with granulated sugar or powdered sugar, cocoa powder, xylitol (sorbitol), covered with glaze.
Classic plastic marmalade of nondescript brown color (it is given by apples), glossy on top, slightly moist and looks like a hard jam. Such marmalade is the most useful, but also the most expensive. The highest quality indicator is when fruit and berry marmalade is produced in accordance with GOST 6442-89. Due to the high price of this natural jelly product, it is difficult to find it in stores. Jelly marmalade is prepared on the basis of a solution of jelly-forming substances with sugar and molasses, with the addition (or without addition) of fruit and berry purees and fruit juice. It also contains flavors and dyes. Jelly marmalade of the highest quality - chewable. It is characterized by a firm firm consistency, lingering taste and long shelf life. This is achieved using gelatin and a wax-fat mixture. Makes the chewy sweetness smooth, shiny, and prevents the candies from sticking together with a mixture of beeswax and vegetable fat (in a ratio of 10% to 90%).
The composition of natural marmalade includes the following classic ingredients: fruit or fruit and berry mass (base); gelling agent (thickener); granulated sugar or molasses (filler). The fruit jelly owes its interesting consistency, elastic and dense, to special gelling and gelling substances.
The most common natural thickening agent is gelatin (from the Latin gelatus - congealed). Gelatin is a jelly-forming substance of protein origin.
The substance is obtained by denaturation of the connective tissue of animals (cartilage, veins, bones, skin). The basis of gelatin is hydrolyzed collagen protein. It is a mixture of proteins and peptides that contains two important amino acids (proline and hydroxyproline). For 100 grams of gelatin there are: 87, 2 g of proteins; 0.4 g fat; 0.7 g carbohydrates; 10g of water, the rest is trace elements. Caloric content of the product is 355 kcal. High-grade gelatin is stored in plates, while regular gelatin is in powder form. In the table used to characterize the composition of food products, this natural thickener of animal origin is labeled as food additive E441.
The gelling substance most useful for the human body is agar-agar (from the Malay agar - jelly). It is a mixture of agaropectin and agarose polysaccharides, which is obtained by extracting an extract from brown and red algae. In the table of food additives, agar-agar is designated E 406.
The chemical composition of this substance: 80% -polysaccharides; 16% water; 4% - mineral salts. The color of the first grade can be from yellow to dark yellow. The premium class is white or light yellow with a slight gray tinge. Agar-agar does not contain fats, proteins in its composition 5%, and 95% - carbohydrates. It is the strongest gelling agent known in the world. But due to its high cost, it is rarely used in the industrial production of marmalade.
A polysaccharide called pectin obtained from fruits, vegetables and root vegetables is a food supplement E440. Pectin is widely used as a gelling agent due to its ability to form a pasty gel when in an acidic or sweet environment.
This product is extracted from secondary plant materials: pomace, bagasse, citrus peel, apples, sugar beet. Pectin belongs to the group of dietary fiber and is characterized by a very low calorie content. 100 g of the substance contains no more than 52 kcal. It is an ideal component for making fruit and berry marmalade.
In the conditions of industrial production of jelly candies, the food additive E 1422 (distarch adipate) is also used as a thickener. This is a common starch modified with acids (acetic and adipic). Due to this modification, the substance acquired the ability to bind moisture released during heating and is an excellent emulsifier. However, modified starch degrades the taste of the manufactured product and increases its caloric content.
The color of the marmalade is enriched by the introduction of various dyes.
The following are traditional natural dyes:
- Lutein, included in the list of food additives under the number E161b and belonging to the xanthophyll group. It is a persistent yellow pigment found in flowers, as well as fruits, leaves and roots of some vegetables. For example, carrots, persimmons, avocado, pumpkin, corn, parsley. Lutein is used commercially, extracted from flowers called marigolds.
- A stable and reliable colorant that can be used to create many colors (red, purple, pink, orange) is called carmine or cochineal. The double name of the substance is due to its natural, but not plant origin. One of the varieties of Latin American cacti is home to a cochineal insect (or scale insect), which produces carminic acid. It is this enzyme that is the basis of the dye. This purple-red powder is registered as a food additive E120.
- A widely used spice in cooking, turmeric (turmeric) is known as the food additive E100. This hot-tasting and pungent camphor seasoning, added to food in very small quantities, perfectly colors it in colors from bright yellow to orange.
- Chlorophylls and chlorophyllins give the products a green and emerald hue. Food colors E140 - E 141 contain the pigment of such plants as seaweed, nettle, alfalfa, broccoli.
- The so-called enoc dye is extracted from dark grapes and elderberries. This tricky substance behaves differently depending on the acidity of the environment in which it enters, and can give either a red or a blue tint.
Natural plant colors can be made at home. Usually freshly squeezed concentrated juices from colored fruits, berries and vegetables are used. And if you take their crushed and slightly fried pulp, the color will turn out to be more saturated. Here are some simple examples: pumpkin or sea buckthorn - orange; beetroot - pink; red - lingonberry; yellow - carrots; blue - indigo root; green - spinach or broccoli; brown - cinnamon; black - licorice powder. But here one indispensable condition must be observed - to introduce coloring components only after the prepared marmalade mass has cooled to 85 degrees.
Natural dyes have one significant drawback - they are not persistent. The product colored by them loses color and fades during storage. Therefore, in the production of marmalade, artificially created dyes are in demand. They are adapted to high temperatures, more resistant and, moreover, less expensive. Today, 96 different dyes (both natural and synthetic) are involved in the creation of a palette of marmalade colors - and this is a kind of quantitative record of marmalade for the use of coloring additives.
In addition to dry, there are liquid, gel and paste-like food coloring components that are approved for use and safe. Popular among confectioners are Natrakol dyes (Roha Europe, Spain), the Russian brand Luxomix, as well as the products of Bioline, Ecocolor, etc.
In the recipe for making sweets, especially jams, preserves, marmalade, syrup is often present as a sugar substitute. It is a thick, sweet syrup that can be obtained in two ways: by saccharification of potato or corn starch; by boiling fruit juice.
Molasses has the ability to increase the solubility of sucrose and contains sugars, which are composed of equal parts fructose and glucose. At the same time, the properties of molasses are similar to those of sugar - high glycemic index, high calorie content and fast absorption.
In industry, molasses is used, which is formed as a by-product in the production of starch. In cooking, other types of molasses are used, in particular, sugar and fruit molasses. They are easy and simple to make at home.
Ingredients: 350 g refined sugar; 150 ml of water; 2 g citric acid; 1.5 grams of baking soda.
Preparation: Boil water, pour sugar into it. With constant stirring, bring the solution to a boil. When the sugar is completely dissolved, add citric acid. To obtain a syrup, this mixture should be cooked for 45 minutes over low heat, covered with a lid. Remove the saucepan from heat, let cool slightly. Add baking soda, previously slightly diluted with warm water, into the syrup. Stir thoroughly - strong foaming will start. After waiting for the foam to settle, remove its remnants from the surface and leave the mass to infuse for a quarter of an hour. If the sweet component is not supposed to be used immediately after preparation, then the molasses must be transferred to a glass container and refrigerated.
Any fruit can be used to make molasses, as long as they are juicy. The calculation is as follows: to obtain 1 glass of molasses, take 2 kg of fruit and 0.5 liters of water.
Method of preparation: Squeeze the fruits through a juicer, strain the resulting juice thoroughly, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, add sugar and simmer the juice over low heat for 3-6 hours, until the volume of the liquid decreases 4-5 times and you get a thick mass, similar to maple syrup. The finished molasses should be transferred to glass jars, cooled and put into the refrigerator. 2 liters of sweetened apple juice makes about 1 cup of molasses. When deciding on the quantity, it is worth considering the property of fruits to be boiled down almost ten times. A thicker workpiece is obtained from pears, but most often culinary specialists use apple molasses.
In a homemade marmalade recipe, sugar can be replaced not only with molasses, but also with fructose or honey, from this the jelly sweetness will only benefit, since it will turn out to be more useful.
Fruit jelly is a low-calorie, fat-free product. Per 100 grams: there is no fat at all, about 1 g of proteins and about 80 grams of carbohydrates. The calorie content of natural marmalade, depending on the variety, varies from 275 to 355 kcal. Thanks to its high carbohydrate content, it energizes us. The absence of fat gives it the right to be considered a dietary product. But do not abuse it and overeat with sweetness. Side effects such as nausea, gastrointestinal upset, and skin rashes may appear.
In modern confectionery production, bone gelatin, synthetic colors and flavors, artificial pectin, molasses, and modified starch are added to marmalade. Such components are cheaper than natural ones, but they can be at the expense of quality. Therefore, when buying jelly delicacies, you should pay attention to the most important factors - the composition of the product, the naturalness of the ingredients, the shelf life, as well as the condition of the packaging.
If you have a piece of good marmalade in your hands, then:
- The jelly sweetness has a brightly pronounced shape and clear contours (the sides of the gummies should not be pulled in).
- No sticking to fingers is felt. Sugar from a fresh jelly product is slightly crumbled, and layered marmalade is usually slightly moist and smooth. When breaking, the piece does not crunch, does not crumble, but stretches a little. At the same time, it keeps its shape well and, when pressed, returns to its original state.
- The gummy is transparent or slightly cloudy in appearance, with a glassy fracture, has a not too dense structure.
- Layers in a multi-layered product are clearly visible. Have a marmalade topped with chocolate. the glaze layer should be uniform or wavy, without cracks and white bloom.
- A clear sign of using a natural dye is a muted dull color.
- A neutral odor is evidenced by the absence of fragrances.
- To taste, it should not be too sweet and not cloying, but slightly sour.
Thus, you can make sure that you have a really high-quality and natural product in front of you - a tasty and healthy jelly delicacy, which is rightfully considered marmalade.
