JPH0767536A - Hard candy and its production - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To produce hard candy reduced in calorie and improved in shape- retaining property. CONSTITUTION:This candy improved in shape-retaining property is obtained by blending 15-80wt.%, preferably 20-60wt.% of reduced polydextrose with the residual part of at least one kind of saccharide selected from sugars and sugar alcohols as main components.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a hard candy and a method for producing the same. More specifically, it relates to a hard candy having improved shape retention, excellent transparency and color tone, and reduced calories.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, hard candy has been consumed in large quantities as a familiar favorite food. In recent years, many hard candy products of a type that have never existed have been found to meet the needs of consumers. For example, there are those that use plenty of fruit juice and various extracts, those that use sugar that does not easily cause tooth decay, and those that use low-calorie or low-sweetness sugar, depending on the consumer's purpose. You can choose. However, in general, these hard candy have high hygroscopicity and often lose their shape during storage. There is a drawback that so-called shape retention is poor.

That is, when a lot of fruit juice is added to a conventional hard candy mainly composed of sugar and starch syrup to make a product as close as possible to a fruit, the hard candy during storage is The shape retention is poor, and there is the problem that the product loses its shape and loses its commercial value in the individually packaged bags, and the amount and type of fruit juice used is limited.
Further, sugar alcohols are often used in low-calorie and low caries hard candy, and maltitol, which is a disaccharide sugar alcohol, is often used. For example,
Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-6580 discloses maltitol 35-35.
60% by weight, less than 3% by weight of a sugar alcohol having a degree of polymerization of more than 20 and 0.1 to 19% by weight of sorbitol and the rest of a sugar alcohol having a degree of polymerization of 3 to 20 can be used to produce a hard candy that does not induce tooth decay. Has been introduced.

However, hard candy containing a large amount of maltitol has high hygroscopicity and poor shape retention, and thus has a problem in storage stability. For this reason, ingenuity in manufacturing has been made. That is, while the conventional hard candy has a moisture content of 2 to 3%, it is necessary to boil it down to a moisture content of 1% or less, and the air conditioning of the manufacturing factory is adjusted, and the product form is moisture-proof. At present, it is limited to the bag type which is individually wrapped with high packaging material. Furthermore, the most common and efficient stamping method for hard candy cannot be used, and the hard candy is manufactured by a deposit method.

As a measure for solving such a problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-304846 discloses that sorbitol is 0.1 to 5% by weight and hydroxylated disaccharide alcohol is 0.1 to 10.
By producing a candy using a hydrolyzed starch hydrolyzate consisting of 25 to 80% by weight of a polyol having a degree of polymerization of 20 or more and 25 to 80% by weight, and the remaining portion being a hydrogenated polyol having a degree of polymerization of 3 to 19, He says he can solve the problem. In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-500826 discloses that
It is introduced that a hard candy which is stable even under high temperature and high humidity can be prepared by producing hydrogenated starch hydrolyzate in an amount of 10 to 90% by weight and a polymer of glucose or maltose in an amount of 90 to 10% by weight. .

[0006]

However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-3.
According to Japanese Patent No. 04846, the effect is not sufficient, and since it contains 25 to 80% by weight of a polyol having a polymerization degree of 20 or more, the viscosity of the candy dough becomes too high. Furthermore, hard candy that is conscious of low calories cannot be practically used because its own calories are not so low. In addition, published Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-500826
The glucose or maltose polymer used in the publication is specifically described as polydextrose in the publication, but this polydextrose is a brown powder in which a small amount of citric acid used during production remains, and When blended into hard candy, it has the drawback that it does not give a transparent and transparent color, and the acidity due to citric acid interferes with the overall taste depending on the seasoning, or the flavor selection is therefore limited.

As described above, physical properties such as preservability and hygroscopicity,
Functionality such as low calorie and low caries, as well as color
A hard candy and a method for producing the hard candy, which have all the various demands for hard candy today such as taste and fashion, are not known. Therefore, the present invention improves the shape retention of a hard candy that uses many additives such as fruit juice without impairing the taste and color, and also for hard candy with low calories and low caries. The purpose of the present invention is to improve shape retention and manufacture various hard candy without damaging its functional effect.

[0008]

That is, according to the present invention, a mixture of saccharides used as a main ingredient of hard candy is blended with reduced polydextrose in an amount of 15 to 80% by weight in terms of solid content, so that the conventional problem has been solved. It improves the poor form. The reduced polydextrose in the present invention is obtained by hydrogenating polydextrose at high temperature and high pressure. The hydrogenation method may be a method in which sorbitol is industrially produced from glucose. Polydextrose, which is a raw material for reduced polydextrose, is produced by polycondensation of glucose as the main raw material in the presence of sorbitol and citric acid, and it is a powdery water-soluble indigestible polysaccharide that is widely used as a food material. It is used. Examples of the polydextrose include polydextrose manufactured by Pfizer, Inc., and lytes, which is an improved product of polydextrose also manufactured by Pfizer, Inc., and each of them contains 90% or more of glucose as a main component. It contains unreacted glucose, sorbitol, citric acid, and dehydrated glucose.

The reduced polydextrose used in the present invention has almost no sweetness and has a low calorie of 1 Kcal / g, and is suitable for products which are focused on low sweetness, low calorie and low caries. Furthermore, it also has the effect of dietary fiber. Also, the aforementioned polydextrose and lytes are both slightly brownish powders, and when dissolved in water they become brown solutions, and even hard candy becomes a colored product. On the other hand, the aqueous solution of reduced polydextrose used in the present invention is colorless and transparent, and when hard candy is used, it can be colored for various purposes, and hard candy with various colors can be produced. Becomes Further, both the conventional polydextrose and the lytes have some citric acid remaining, and when blended into candy as they are, the acidity may adversely affect the flavor and taste depending on the seasoning. However, the reduced polydextrose used in the present invention has almost no residual citric acid, and does not feel a sour taste even when made into a candy.

As described above, conventional polydextrose and lytes are colored as compared with reduced polydextrose and contain citric acid, so that
Widely used for hard candy is restricted. However, it is generally known that coloring substances and citric acid contained in polydextrose and lytes can be removed by purification with an ion exchange resin. However, the reduced polydextrose used in the present invention undergoes a treatment of reduction, and at the same time, the glucose contained in a small amount in polydextrose and lytes changes to more stable sorbitol, and at the same time, the glucose at the end of the polymer also changes to sorbitol. The whole becomes stable.

This is because, for example, lytes and reduced polydextrose are heated at 100 ° C. under neutral to alkaline conditions.
When heated for about 2 hours, the reduced polydextrose is hardly colored, whereas the lytes becomes more alkaline as it becomes more alkaline, and the glucose that is contained as a few% of the unreacted component is decomposed. This is indicated by the difference that cannot be explained by itself. In addition, when polydextrose was not reduced, a clear and citric acid-free solution was prepared by purification with an ion-exchange resin, and a taste comparison was performed at the same concentration as reduced polydextrose by a sensory test, which clearly showed reduction. It was found that polydextrose has improved astringency, bitterness, and aftertaste, and that it is possible to achieve the taste quality improvement that cannot be achieved only by the ion exchange resin treatment and cannot be achieved without the reduction step.

The compounding ratio of the reduced polydextrose used in the present invention is 15 to 80% by weight, preferably 20 to 6
The range of 0% by weight can be raised. If the amount of reduced polydextrose is less than 15% by weight, the effect of improving the shape retention is not observed, and if it exceeds 80% by weight, the viscosity becomes too high, which is a problem in the production of hard candy. In addition, sugars and sugar alcohols other than reduced polydextrose are various oligosaccharides such as maltose, palatinose, coupling sugar, galacto-oligosaccharides, isomalt-oligosaccharides, and maltitol, as well as conventional hard candy combinations of sugar and starch syrup. Examples include sugar alcohols such as lactitol, reduced starch syrup, palatinit, erythritol, xylitol, and mannitol, and at least one kind or a mixture of two or more kinds thereof is preferable.
Depending on the sugar and sugar alcohol used, the viscosity of the hard candy dough becomes too high, which may result in poor workability or failure to use existing manufacturing machines, but as a solution to that, xylitol is a solution. -It is also effective to use saccharides such as erythritol and sorbitol having a small molecular weight and a low viscosity.

Although candy can be produced only by using the main ingredient of hard candy as described above, various fragrances such as black tea, green tea, coffee and menthol, citric acid, malic acid, lactic acid can be used as auxiliary materials, if necessary. Acidity of tartaric acid, tincture pigments, safflower pigments, beet red pigments, caramel pigments, publica pigments, cochineal pigments, fruit juices or extracts such as apples, strawberries, oranges, and other vitamins It is also possible to add commonly used confectionery raw materials such as various kinds of calcium, various calciums, and fruit flavonoids for seasoning. Also,
If necessary, a sweetener having a high degree of sweetness such as acesulfame K, stevia, aspartame, saccharin sodium can be added to improve lack of sweetness and improve sweetness quality.

In producing the hard candy of the present invention, reduced polydextrose may be added and mixed in the same manner as other saccharides, and concentrated by a conventional method under either reduced pressure or normal pressure. Next, auxiliary materials such as flavors, acidulants, and fruit juices are added and mixed as needed to the hard candy dough concentrated to a water content of 1 to 2% to be molded. The molding method may be either a deposit method or a stamping method.

[0015]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described below with reference to specific examples. Of course, this does not limit the scope of the present invention.

Example 1 Powdered polydextrose manufactured by Pfizer Inc. was dissolved in water, reduced in a usual manner using a nickel catalyst at high temperature and high pressure, and purified by activated carbon treatment / ion exchange resin treatment.
Concentrated to a 70% solution. A hard candy was produced as follows using this reduced polydextrose solution. Marvit (Maltitol solution, manufactured by Nikken Chemical Co., Ltd.,
75% concentration) 100 parts by weight of reduced polydextrose 1
9 parts were mixed, concentrated to a water content of 1.3% and molded into a candy. The hard candy thus obtained was a colorless and transparent product having good shape retention.

Example 2 As in Example 1, 161 parts of reduced polydextrose (70% concentration) was mixed with 100 parts by weight of Marvit (maltitol solution, 75% concentration) manufactured by Niken Chemical Co., Ltd. It was concentrated to a content of 1.5% and formed into a candy.
It was found that the shape retention was further improved as compared with the hard candy of Example 1.

COMPARATIVE EXAMPLE 1 Only Marvit from Nikko Chemical Co., Ltd., which was used in Example 1, was concentrated to a water content of 1.2% and molded into a candy. It was found that the shape retention property was extremely poor as compared with the hard candy of Examples 1 and 2.

Example 3 89 parts by weight of starch syrup (concentration 75%) and 30 parts by weight of water were mixed and dissolved in 100 parts by weight of granulated sugar, and further 102 parts by weight of reduced polydextrose (concentration 70%) of Example 1 was mixed. And concentrated, and then cooled to 100 ° C. To 100 parts by weight of the candy base, 1 part by weight of 5-fold concentrated grape juice concentrate and 1.5 parts by weight of citric acid were added and mixed,
Molded into candy. The hard candy thus obtained was a product with a moisture content of 2.3%, which was transparent and had a bright and good shape retention.

Comparative Example 2 89 parts by weight of starch syrup (concentration 75%) and 35 parts by weight of water were mixed and dissolved in 100 parts by weight of granulated sugar, concentrated to a water content of 2.0%, and then cooled to 100 ° C. Similarly to Example 3, 5 times concentrated grape juice and citric acid were added to 100 parts by weight of the candy base and mixed to form a candy. Example 3 It was found that the shape retention was poorer than that of the hard candy.

Example 4 S57 (Nippon Kagaku Co., Ltd.) (reduced starch syrup, concentration 70)
%) 100 parts by weight of reduced polydextrose (concentration 70
%) 17.6 parts by weight were mixed and concentrated to a water content of 2.4% to form a candy. The hard candy thus obtained was a colorless and transparent product having good shape retention.

Comparative Example 3 Only S57, manufactured by Nikko Chemical Co., Ltd. used in Example 4, was concentrated to a water content of 2.6% to form a candy. It was found that the shape retention property was extremely poor as compared with the hard candy of Example 4.

Example 5 Palatinit (reduced palatinose, manufactured by Mitsui Sugar Co., Ltd.,
100 parts by weight of water of crystallization (containing 4.2%) was mixed with 205 parts of reduced polydextrose (concentration: 70%) to obtain a water content of 1.
It was concentrated to 5% and formed into a candy. The hard candy thus obtained was a colorless and transparent product having good shape retention.

Comparative Example 4 Only the same palatinit manufactured by Mitsui Sugar Co., Ltd. as used in Example 5 was concentrated to a water content of 1.1% and molded into a candy. It was found that the shape retention was poorer than that of the hard candy of Example 5.

A storage test at 37 ° C. and a flow test at a constant temperature and humidity were conducted to compare the shape-retaining properties of the hard candy of the above Examples and Comparative Examples. The storage test was carried out for Examples 1 and 2 and Comparative Example 1, and the flow test was carried out for all of Examples 1-5 and Comparative Examples 1-4. The specific measurement method is as follows.

The storage test was carried out by putting two pieces of candy in a plastic bag at 37 ° C., and observing the presence or absence of adhesion, the presence or absence of shape deformation, and the degree thereof over time. The results are shown in Table 1. In the other flow test, a hard candy having a diameter of 16 mm and a weight of 3.0 to 3.1 g per piece is not packaged, and allowed to stand for 3 days in an atmosphere of 30 ° C. and a relative humidity of 63%. The degree of shape collapse was evaluated by measuring the following items.

[0027]

[Equation 1] The smaller the flow number, the better the shape retention of the hard candy. The results are shown in Table 2.

[0028]

[Table 1]

[0029]

[Table 2]

Reference Example 1 An aqueous solution of lytes and reduced polydextrose having a concentration of 50% (w / w) was prepared, and the pH was adjusted with acid or alkali.
Was adjusted to 3-9. When this aqueous solution was heated at 100 ° C. for 2 hours, the lytes was strongly colored on the alkaline side, whereas the reduced polydextrose was slightly colored at pH 9, and it was reduced to a particularly alkaline state by heating. It was found to be very stable. Table 3 shows the coloring degree of the solution after heating, which was measured by a spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 420 nm using a 1 cm cell.

[0031]

[Table 3]

Reference Example 2 A lytes aqueous solution having a concentration of 40% (w / w) was prepared, and a strongly acidic cation resin, a strongly basic anion resin, and then a strongly acidic cation resin and a strongly basic anion resin were uniformly mixed and mixed. Ion exchange resin purification was performed in the order of floor resin. The ion-exchange resin-purified lytes and reduced polydextrose were adjusted to a concentration of 20% (w / v), and a sensory test of taste was conducted by 11 panelists. The results are shown in Table 4. Both pH values were in the range of 5.5 to 5.7.

[0033]

[Table 4]

[0034]

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION The hard candy of the present invention uses reduced polydextrose which is colorless and transparent and has a low calorie as an aqueous solution as one of the main ingredients. Therefore, a candy of a low calorie and a free color can be produced and preserved. It is a hard candy with greatly improved form.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A hard candy containing at least one sugar selected from sugars and sugar alcohols and reduced polydextrose as the main ingredients. 2. A mixture of at least one type of sugar selected from sugars and sugar alcohols and a sugar containing reduced polydextrose as a main component, and containing reduced polydextrose in the range of 15 to 80% by weight. A method for producing a hard candy, which comprises dissolving and concentrating a mixture of the sugars and then solidifying the mixture.