Sugar panning

Sugar panning, or simply panning, is a method for adding a candy "shell" to candy or nuts. Popular candies that employ this process in their manufacture include dragées, M&M's, gobstoppers, and jelly beans. Jelly beans use soft panning whilst the other three are examples of hard panning. The process was initially invented in 17th century France to make jordan almonds.

Method

Hard and soft panning both are made in a similar fashion, but with different ingredients and at different speeds. A dragée pan, a spherical or oval pan mounted on an angled spinning post, is used. The pan is open to the air to allow ingredients to be added and the syrup to dry. The centers are put in the dragée pan, and syrup is added. The pan spins, and the syrup is evenly distributed over the centers and dries on as a layer. Soft panned layers can be quite thick and do not well preserve the shape of the center. Hard panned layers take longer to dry and can be typically as thick as 10-14μm.

The choice for centers is wide, but they must be strong enough to not break during the tumbling. Nuts should be dried and sealed, such as with gum arabic and flour, to prevent oils from escaping and discoloring the candy shell. Other centers may be precoated for sealing or to improve the syrup sticking to the center. Chewing gum is difficult to pan without precoating.