We mentioned in an earlier post that we both love to cook. I love cooking both for the chemistry and because you get to answer the question: what flavors taste good together?There are five different basic tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami (a meaty, protein-y flavor, like soy sauce). Different amounts of different tastes is what makes complex dishes interesting.
Lollipops are obviously sweet -- the main process to make them is to dissolve sugar in water. But what flavors do you add? Sour, or acidic, flavors are long popular in sweet treats - apples to a degree, lemon, and lime are all sour. In fact, all our fruit flavors have citric acid added to them; they didn't taste as good without it. During our tasting party, we also offered up other flavors: coffee (bitter), tangerine-clove (sour and bitter), salted caramel, vanilla-cardamom (bitter again).
Using the tasting party data, we've settled on what we'll be offering for sale for now. That said, we love experimenting. We want to find out how different flavors taste together and whether or not they work as a lollipop. I personally want to someday try salted lime, jalapeno, cinnamon, and lemon-plum. Once the business is up and running, we'll continue to experiment.
What flavors would you like to see?
I love interesting combos. I'm hoping we still have a tangerine-clove in our stash so I can try that. Have you tried anything with ginger? That might be good with lemon or lime.
ReplyDeleteWe had a few ginger flavors, including ginger-lime, at the tasting party. They all scored horribly -- our conclusion was that our source of the ginger flavor wasn't a good one. We haven't given up on ginger altogether, just that particular source.
ReplyDeleteIt can have such a strong flavor that I wouldn't be surprised if it went horribly wrong in general. You don't see too many other ginger flavored candies out there except the chocolate-covered candied stuff.
ReplyDeleteCharles mentions that that umami taste is MSG. His mom brought us a whole bag of it from Korea. I think it was labeled as "flavor powder". :)
ReplyDeleteHe also brings up a good point that a lot of what makes certain flavors work is the texture. For instance, that delicous red bean might not taste right in lollipop format because you won't be able to replicate the characteristic soft graininess that always accompanies it.
Have you done anything with almond? Honey almond or coffee almond might be good. Tea? (That would open up a whole bunch of possibilities - green tea, black tea, lemon tea...) Chai lollipops made with tea, cardamom, clove and vanilla or honey? That might be too crazy.