20 Amazing Chocolate Facts

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when we mention chocolate bars? Warmth? Happiness? Luxury? Cravings? Whatever relationship you have with the sweet stuff, it’s likely that it’s a loving one – especially due to the fact that you’re here reading this blog!

Kids and adults alike love chocolate. It’s so wonderful that it can even solve every problem imaginable. Feel sad? Eat chocolate. Got something to celebrate? Then why not buy a whole box? Chocolate should really be the 8th wonder of the world when you think about it. In fact, it’s been so highly prized throughout time that it’s even been used as currency! So, whether you enjoy sugar-free chocolate, good old Australian chocolate, Whittakers chocolate or any other type, read on for some amazing chocolate facts!

1. Cacao seeds were used as money by the Aztecs
2. The first ever chocolate bar was invented by Joseph Fry in 1847
3. Montezuma II, the Aztec emperor, drank over 50 cups of chocolate every day!
4. Chocolate milk aids recovery after a workout
5. The chocolate river in the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was made with cream, chocolate and a staggering 15,000 gallons of water! Sounds amazing? The cast said that it stank because it spoiled so quickly.
6. Way back in 1930, a lady named Ruth Wakefield ran out of baker’s chocolate while making cookies, so she used Nestle chocolate pieces instead. She later sold on her idea for creating chocolate chip cookies to Nestle for a gift of a lifetime supply of chocolate!
7. Bizarrely, Lays once produced limited edition chips coated in milk chocolate. Yum!?
8. An Aztec slave could be purchased for 100 cocoa beans

Just Why Do We Love Popping Candy So Much And How Does It Work?

There’s nothing more exciting to eat than popping candy. When you put it in your mouth, you’ve no idea whether you’ll experience a little fizz and tingle or more of an explosion! Popping candy is great to use in all sorts of recipes or you can just eat it the old-fashioned way. Whether you like sour lollies, Australian lollies, American candy or anything else, popping candy is one sweet treat that’s always good to have in the kitchen cupboard.

Popping candy causes explosions on your tongue. And, it’s unique pop, fizz and crackle are down to how it’s made. So, let’s find out more.

How is popping candy made?

Believe it or not but popping candy is made is a very similar way to normal boiled lollies. Flavouring, sugar, water and corn syrup are mixed and heated until the water boils away. If this mixture was then put to one side and allowed to cool, you’d have regular hard sweets. However, popping candy is made by exposing the mixture to 40 times normal atmospheric pressure high-pressure carbon dioxide gas. Bubbles then form and as the mix cools down, the pressure is released causing it to shatter into lots of hard little rock-like pieces. Each little piece is filled with high-pressure pockets. So, when you eat the candy, or place it on your tongue, it melts and releases the little pressurised bubbles. And, this is why popping candy explodes in your mouth. Amazing! We wonder who first came up with the idea?

The history of popping candy

Way back in 1956, William A. Mitchell was working for General Foods of America. The chemist created popping candy, but it took until 1975 until consumers saw it on shop shelves. Interestingly, in those days there was a rumour circulating that if you mixed coke with popping candy, you would either choke or your stomach would blow up! Of course, this wasn’t true but General Foods were forced to send out open letters to schools and parents as well as setting up roadshows to dispel the myth!

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