What Exactly Is Candy Corn?

Americans buy some 9 billion kernels of candy corn every year. Learn this candy's history plus how it's made in today's episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb here. Every Halloween in the
United States, bags of triangle shaped, yellow, orange, and white
candies fill trigger treat bags all over the country, and
there are many bags to fill. According to the National
Confectioners Association, candy companies produce nearly thirty five million pounds

(00:24):
that's almost sixteen million kilograms of candy corn every year.
That's about nine billion individual pieces. Candy corn is a
sweet replica of dried corn kernels. It's considered a mellow cream,
which is a type of candy made from corn syrup
and sugar that has a marshmallow like flavor. Although candy
corn tastes rich, it's actually fat free, but that doesn't

(00:46):
mean as a health food. It is mostly sugar. Most
people know the traditional candy corn with three stripes, yellow
at the thick end, orange in the center, and white
at the peak, but it also comes in a variety
of other colors and flavors depending on the holiday. Brown,
orange and white for Thanksgiving, green white and red reindeer
corn for Christmas, pink, red and white cupid corn for

(01:06):
Valentine's Day, and pastel colored bunny corn for Easter. The
traditional variety is most popular in the fall, especially around Halloween.
October thirty is National Candy Corn Day. However, candy corn
didn't become associated with Halloween until after World War Two,
when trigger treating became popular. Candy corn has been around

(01:27):
for more than a century. One George Renninger of the
Wonderly Candy Company, probably invented it in the eighteen eighties,
perhaps because its look was reminiscent of farm life. It
caught on with city folk nostalgic for a rural past,
and its tricolored look was revolutionary for the candy industry
at the time. The Goltz Candy Company started making candy
corn in Ndred and still makes it today under the

(01:49):
Jellybelly Candy Company name. The recipe for candy corn hasn't
changed that much since the late eighteen hundreds, but the
way it's made has changed quite a bit. In the
early day is workers mixed the main ingredients sugar, water
and corn syrup in large kettles. Then they added fondant,
which is a sweet, creamy icing also made from sugar,
corn syrup and water, and marshmallow for smoothness. They then

(02:13):
poured the mixture into kernel shaped mold in corn starch trays.
They had to do this in three passes, walking backward,
one pass for each color. Because the work was so tedious,
candy corn was only available from August to November. Today,
machines do the work and marshmallow has been replaced with
one of its key ingredients. Gelatin. Manufacturers use a corn

(02:35):
starch molding process to create the signature design, so it's
a molded candy. The molds are made by packing corn
starch into frames and then stamping the kernel shape into
the corn starch tip down, or a plastic mold can
be coated with a fine layer of corn starch. Either way,
pumps and jet the batter into the molds, layer by layer,

(02:56):
starting with the white tip, and the candies are left
to cure for a day or two. Another machine will
then shake the hardened candies out of the corn starch
molds and down through shoots. Any excess corn starts shakes
loose in a big sifter. Then the candy corn gets
a wax glaze to make it shine, and workers package
it for shipment to stores. The whole process takes three
or four days. Today's episode was written by Stephanie Watson

(03:22):
and Katherine Whitburn and produced by Tyler Clay. Brain Stuff
is a production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For
more about candy corn, check out an episode of my
other show Sabor called The Scorn of Candy Corn. It's
from November. And for more on lots of other sweet topics,
visit our home planet, how stuff works dot com and
and for more podcast in my heart Radio, visit the

(03:43):
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.