Right in the middle of the small and romantic village Wehlen you can admire a very old and seldom handicraft: Making candy. Everything in the shop is about candy. A confectioner in the old times must have looked like that.
Everywhere there are glasses full of candy or bags with candy in any flavour. Even something like lemon-rosmary. But you may try the candy before buying it. Fair enough! By the way: only natural flavours or essential oils are used. You will taste it!
All the candy is made in the shop. You can watch it any time. But at 2 pm and 4 pm there is a fixed production round. Or you just drop by. All day long candy is produced there.
The base mass is made out of sugar, water and glucose. It is heated. And it is very important to measure the temperature all the time because otherwise the mass would burn or the candy won’t be solid afterwards. Both would be bad…
The cooking is done in the kitchen but every step afterwards is done in the shop. The mass looks nice and smooth and you would like to touch it which is not a good idea because it has more than a hundred degrees Celsius.
It is the more admirable that the mass is handled manually.
The mass is poured into a frame to cool down. After that the colours are added. The mass has to be moved all the time. When you treat one colour you should not let the other one untouched.
Afterwards the colours are separated and skillfully treated in the air so that tiny bubbles of air are inclosed which makes the mass shiny and also gives a different colour to it.
The different colours are put together into a big roll.
This roll is treated like wire. It is stretched and rolled until you get one meter long pieces with the right diameter. The pieces are cut with a scraper. You do not need many tools for making candy. For example the mass is cut with a normal pair of scissors.
The candy rolls have to cool down until they are solid and afterwards they are cut in pieces with a scraper and a metal bar. That is done with an alarming pace. After that you can admire the little wonder. Right inside the small masterpiece is a very fine pattern included. That is the reason why the colours have been put together before painstakingly!
Handwarm the candy tastes even better!
If you would like to become a candy maker and would love to preserve this old handicraft you should start by becoming a pastry chef.
