Recently, my roomate and I purchased a 4lb bag of Rockets.

(Sidebar: Apparently in the US, Rockets are called Smarties. To me, Smarties are chocolate. This caused me a moment of great confusion when googling them. Also, if anyone's interested, "rocket candy" is apparantly NOT sugary deliciousness in most circles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_candy)
I love candy, but I’ve never been too partial to Rockets.
Anyways, having a 4lb bag of them to go through has given me a strange affinity for the little round, mostly flavourless candies. Forget that the bag smelled like evil chemicals and fake sugar when we opened it, Rockets are awesome.
Fun fact: A roll of Rockets is seven grams. This tiny, seven gram roll contains six grams of sugar.
This is awesome. Any candy that is actually 85% sugar is pretty amazing in my books. But I was always under the impression that Rockets consisted almost entirely of sugar. There’s a whopping 15% there that’s made up of stuff that doesn’t end in ‘ose’!
So I conducted some research.
Rockets basically consist of sugar, more sugar, citric acid and caclium stearate.
Having no idea what calcium stearate is, I looked it up as well (i'm just a googling fiend today). According to the ever-helpful Wikipedia it is a “carboxylate of calcium that is found in some lubricants and surfactants. It is a white calcium salt of stearic acid. Chemically it is related to the components of hand soap.”
Yum.
I love Halloween.

(Sidebar: Apparently in the US, Rockets are called Smarties. To me, Smarties are chocolate. This caused me a moment of great confusion when googling them. Also, if anyone's interested, "rocket candy" is apparantly NOT sugary deliciousness in most circles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_candy)
I love candy, but I’ve never been too partial to Rockets.
Anyways, having a 4lb bag of them to go through has given me a strange affinity for the little round, mostly flavourless candies. Forget that the bag smelled like evil chemicals and fake sugar when we opened it, Rockets are awesome.
Fun fact: A roll of Rockets is seven grams. This tiny, seven gram roll contains six grams of sugar.
This is awesome. Any candy that is actually 85% sugar is pretty amazing in my books. But I was always under the impression that Rockets consisted almost entirely of sugar. There’s a whopping 15% there that’s made up of stuff that doesn’t end in ‘ose’!
So I conducted some research.
Rockets basically consist of sugar, more sugar, citric acid and caclium stearate.
Having no idea what calcium stearate is, I looked it up as well (i'm just a googling fiend today). According to the ever-helpful Wikipedia it is a “carboxylate of calcium that is found in some lubricants and surfactants. It is a white calcium salt of stearic acid. Chemically it is related to the components of hand soap.”
Yum.
I love Halloween.

Yum.
ReplyDeleteThe Smarties Discrepancy has led to much confusion in my life.
I didn't even know! It's so strange. Smarties=delicious candy coated chocolate. Rockets=SUGAR. It's that's simple. Americans are strange people.
ReplyDeleteps. i think you may be the only person who reads my blog and I love you for it! hehe
ReplyDeleteI credit myself with the discovery of the soap.
ReplyDelete