Confection, such as chewing gum, is often coated with a hard shell of sugar or polyol (sugar free). This hard coating protects the chewing gum and provides a pleasant, often colorful, appearance and a nice crunch.
Chocolate panning machines are tools for coating nuts, fruits, and other edibles with chocolate. Chocolate panning is a process that uses a panning chocolate machine with rotating drums to cover inclusions with a fat-based coating, which does not limit the options to chocolate. Coverings can include everything from dark chocolate to yogurt and nut butters.
The chocolate panning process creates the mouth-watering flavor and texture consumers crave. The coating is created by spraying layers of a concentrated solution and drying it. This process is very time consuming (up to 8 hours) as multiple layers (40-150) are needed to make a strong shell.
Popular candies that employ this process include M&M’s and jelly beans. Jelly beans use soft panning, while hard shells like M&Ms are examples of hard panning.
A well-developed and precisely executed chocolate panning technique can provide one of the fastest, most efficient ways to give a chocolate coating to a product. The art of chocolate panning involves the creation of a layer of chocolate surrounding the center, then dusted or polished to a high gloss.
Chocolate-panned confections
