How Kettle Corn, Candy Apples & Giant Lollipops Are Made (from Unwrapped) | Food Network

Get in line for a thrilling adventure in amusement parks get an inside look at the treats we eat between rides Find out the secret to making kettle corns so savory Watch as apples get a candy coating and feast your eyes on this Go behind the scenes to see how these giant lollipops get spun up other foods introduced at public events are Cracker Jack Which is thought to have first appeared at the? 1893 Chicago World's Fair and then Charles Hyers presented root beer at the 1876 Philadelphia World's Fair and a snack you can find it parks across the country today is an old-fashioned treat It's kettle corn with the kettle giving a unique taste and right now We're gonna take you behind the scenes to see how these special popcorn pots are made, and this is so good Popcorn popcorn get your kettle popcorn. You may have seen it. We're starting to go starting to go heard it And even smelled it But have you ever tasted kettle corn? You just want to keep on eating Kettle corn has been around since the mid-1800s when a Missouri farmer figured out how to give regular popcorn a light candy crunch And in the olden days they use an old cast-iron kettle over an open fire They'd throw some popcorn in there some lard in there, and then throw a little bit of sugar in there Until recently the sweet treat was a mystery to much of America We still find areas that we can go to that people don't know what it is They'll walk up to you, and they'll say give me double butter extra salt But kettle corn is dramatically different from plain popcorn it's kind of got like a sugary coating Kettle popcorn is not supposed to be overly sweet. It's supposed to be just lightly sweet and lightly salty Dantrell helped develop a way to cook kettle corn for a crowd. It's called ye old kettle cooker, and it's handmade in, Oklahoma These days the cooker is popping up at some of the biggest amusement parks Here's how it works First a propane flame is turned on under the kettle It should sound like a jet engine when you turn it on Next two scoops of oil are poured in Oil will get between 400 and 450 degrees Usually once it starts to smoke on you. You can tell that it's warm enough a Wooden ladle keeps the corn moving You have to keep the popcorn moving very fastly so that it doesn't burn Just as the corn starts to pop a touch of sugar is added In essence vaporizes the sugar or draws it right into the kernel So you don't have a coated type popcorn like you would in say a caramel corn once it gets popping the real work begins a Whistle signals when the batch is done Salt is tossed in with a slightly sweet corn That's good Dan says it took lots of trial and error to come up with a perfect kettle corn recipe There was an awful lot of batches thrown away We tried everything from regular sugar to brown sugar to powdered sugar in all different formulas Once you've popped the perfect kettle corn it doesn't last long I've had people tell me they don't even like popcorn Literally don't like popcorn and they can't quit eating this Welcome back to unwrapped where we're unwrapping America's favorite amusement park snacks And one of those snacks is the candy apple not to be confused with the caramel apple These are the ones with the hard candy coating and we're gonna take an inside look at the secrets to making that candy coat stick What could be better than a big juicy apple how about a big juicy apple covered in candy No one is quite sure how this tasty tradition got started, but there's no doubt It's one of the sweetest ways to get your apple a day once you're a candy apple, you know Either you're gonna love it until you die, you know as long as you can chew Derek Fowler has loved candy apples since he was a kid, but found them hard to find most of the year Didn't make any sense to have it just for Halloween, you know, or during the summer at the fair Why not have it, you know mid of January, you know dead of winter So this full-time Massachusetts firefighter decided to start his own business making candy apples He started with regular red, but soon fancied fruitier flavors You know, why is it always red and cherry, you know, there's Jolly Ranchers. There's all these other flavored candies out there Why can't they make a candy apple in different flavors? Now Derek's business has blossomed into a 25 flavor candy apple Empire called wild orchards There's so many of them this paint this pineapple orange mango we have a guava that with passion fruit To make his candy apple creations Derek begins with green apples I use Granny Smith's the tartness offsets the sweet candy and then lets you taste the flavor the flavors accentuated a lot better These are no garden variety grannies. These are some of the most ample apples you will ever see Size actually matters I won't use anything less than a two and a half inch Apple in which you rarely find in your your grocery First the apples are hand washed in a vinegar and water solution The water would do sufficiently but vinegar actually takes off more wax than just plain water would do Then they are carefully dried Water and candy don't mix and if you don't get all the water as much water as possible off the apple Once you start to dip the candy will not adhere to the apple Next strong sticks are stuck into the bottom of each Apple. This is a lot of hard work Now that the apples are ready Derek mixes up a batch of his candy coating. This is the secret formula here one scoop of this and another scoop of sugar we yield about 30 to 40 apples a Touch of water is added and the sugary mix is heated once. It's reached the right temperature Precise amounts of flavor and color are added. This is a ginger beer special request When the coating is ready each Apple gets dumped He's spinning it up to get the excess off then you twirl it just so that you got a nice uniform coat And this is just this is a lot of experience here these contemporary candy apples cool off before getting wrapped For traditional candy apples the bright red coating creates a colorful contrast on the green Granny Smith's Besides the wild bunch in this orchard Derek also makes a classic caramel coated Apple But the regular red remains the most popular and now that Derek has made candy apples available year-round They're finding a whole new niche outside the fair And my busiest time is actually the fall and wedding season Candy apples are generally more popular in the east where caramel apples are a Chicago invention popular in the Midwest another sticky confection you can find at the fair is the Lollipop, but not just any ordinary suckers at amusement parks They need to be festive and here are some big colorful candies to grab on to Swirling colors make it look like a pinwheel Maybe that's why it's so attractive to little eyes Then again, maybe it's the massive size that makes it irresistible to little mouths Kendon Candies in San Jose, California Has been making these Giants since the 1960s they call it a psychedelic pop in honor of the era At the time most suckers came in a single color But one clever customer gave owner Tom Kennedy the idea to brighten things up And she said to me. She said I want a multicolored pop because this was the Was the beginning of the psychedelic craze in the United States? Tom made up a single batch of his colorful creation and was stunned at the reaction It it flew it flew so fast. We couldn't believe the sale Soon amusement parks were looking to add this sweet sensation to their stock Today Kendon still makes scores of these colossal candies Each batch begins with white hot liquid candy It pours out at 310 degrees onto a cooling table where powdered food coloring is mixed in by hand creating all five colors The color circles are placed on another table for cooling then they are rolled up and stretched into stripes Next the colors are bound together with small white strips making what candy makers call a jacket Meanwhile a larger mass of the candy is carried to a puller where it transforms from amber to white This large loaf will make the center of the sucker The jacket is rolled around the white bundle and the 80-pound batch of candy is put into a warmer where it's stretched into a thick rainbow rope Next the rope is cut into large balls and a stick is pressed in while it's still warm The ball is then stamped into Kendon's classic sucker shape After riding through a cooling tunnel the pops are wrapped up and carefully packed into boxes At two pounds apiece eating an entire psychedelic pop takes a super-sized appetite