Unwrapped 2.0 (2015) s02e08 Episode Script
Snack Bar
Did you ever wonder how they put the stripes in candy canes or the jiggle in cranberry sauce or the snap in ginger snaps? Well, you've come to the right place.
So put on your favorite holiday sweater I've got mine and sit back and enjoy this very special holiday edition of "Unwrapped 2.
0.
" We'll deck the halls with this iconic peppermint candy and carve out a slice of this classic holiday dessert.
We'll head to the source of this saucy sidekick and see how they put the bark in every bite if this sweet new holiday tradition.
We've got a list of these delicious treats and more that you'll be checking at least twice this holiday season.
The colorful, crunchy candy cane is as iconic as the holiday itself.
But how did it get its shape? Well the legend has it back in 1670, the choir master at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany used sugar sticks and bent them into a shepherd's crook to keep the kids quiet during the long services.
And that was the birth of the candy cane.
And now thanks to the Spangler candy company, candy canes not only keep kids busy, but they dangle from Christmas trees across America.
It's one of the most inexpensive ornaments you can put on your tree, and it's definitely the most tasty.
Spangler twists out candy canes to the tune of 250 million pieces a year.
And making these stripy, tasty treats we all love starts with the basics.
Sugar and corn syrup is heated into a molten sugary mix and poured out in 100-pound batches.
Once the batch drips out of the cooker, we send that to the color flavor mixer.
Two batches of candy are made simultaneously.
One is the crunchy core.
The other, the flavor stripes.
Flavors like peppermint, spearmint, and cinnamon My mouth is watering as we speak.
Once the flavor is added This batch is peppermint the colorful, sweet mixture is taken to the cooling table.
It's set at 180 degrees, chilling it down, as giant curved paddles that look like heavy-duty snow shovels knead and mix the candy.
Hey, I wonder if I could borrow one of these shovels this winter.
From here, the peppermint candy mix is off to the batch former where it will start to really take shape.
The rotating cylinders roll the flavored candy into long, thick logs.
Take the log out of the batch former, place it on the steam-jacketed striping table where we lay out the stripes the different-colored stripes.
We have a solid red stripe, and then we have two red and two white pinstripes.
We apply a little bit of water to the stripes so that it adheres to the candy cane.
And check this out.
Each candy cane stripe is applied by hand to the large candy core.
We have some very skilled laborers that apply the stripes that have been doing it for years and years.
Now, those folks are the real-deal candy stripers.
Once the core gets its stripes, it's off to the batch roller to get that massive hunk of candy to the size we all know and love.
This candy log about 12 inches in diameter gets rolled and squeezed down to about the size of your pinky.
A little flame to make it pliable, then it's fed through the twister, where You guessed it the candy gets its familiar twist.
The twisted, stripy candy is ready to be sliced down to the right length by the knife chain and off to the wrapping machine.
But wait.
Where's the hook? We have to wrap the candy cane before the crook is put on them so that the candy doesn't crack.
You might call it a hook, maybe a crook, but come hook or by crook, this next step gives the candy cane its signature bend.
The crook is made mechanically.
The straight piece of candy falls onto the crooker deck where it's stuck between a crooker cone and a hard place.
Slowly, the cane takes shape.
The candy is wrapped and crooked while it's still warm.
Otherwise they'd break at the bend.
Well, there you go.
Now that looks like the candy canes we all know and love.
Just one more step between you and that minty flavor the cooling belt.
We try to get the candy canes down to about 100 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit so they can be packed easier and they won't break.
The canes are hand packed into 80-count jars, stacked into cartons, and housed in temperature-controlled warehouses until the halls are decked and bells are jingled, signaling the season is upon us.
Decking the halls during the holiday season always includes a brightly lit and festively decorated tree.
But how about a tree you can crunch? Based in Weymouth, Massachusetts, Melville Candy Company created a candy that even Santa's elves would approve of handmade tree pops.
The tree is the number-one hit with the kids.
They love the tree.
Melville's is a family affair that started back in the 1920s making candy from molds.
But it wasn't until the '90s when they created the Christmas tree lollipop, and it was an instant hit.
The tree is pretty much an iconic type of shape.
People love the shape of the tree.
I think it's become something that people look for every holiday season, and enjoy eating them and enjoy giving them and also to decorate with.
And these tree pops, like most candy, begin with sugar, corn syrup, and water.
Those raw ingredients are cooked down until it becomes liquid sugar.
Meanwhile, Melville's signature tree-pop molds are prepped and ready to go with their unique design element.
Pieces of crushed peppermint placed in the mold, along with the lollipop stick, give it a festive flavor and awesome look, kind of like ornaments for a tree.
These tree molds are one of a kind.
Each mold is actually designed by our in-house team, and the tree is one of the earliest ones that we started with, so it's very close to our home.
It's a really cool, unique design for us.
With the liquid candy hot off the stove, the peppermint flavor and green dye are quickly added and mixed in.
Before the sweet mixture has a chance to cool down, it's carefully hand-poured into each mold.
Then, it's take five until it hardens.
It usually takes three to five minutes for the trees to actually cool down and are able to come out of the molds.
Once the pops are completely hardened, they're simply lifted out of the molds and are ready to be bagged.
Someone takes each bag and puts it around each lollipop one at a time.
The bags are heat-sealed and ready to be stuffed into Christmas stockings.
Generally we make around about 40,000 to 50,000 units a day of the trees.
You heard that right.
Christmas tree lollipops a day during the holiday season.
That's a lot of licks.
I can't wait for Christmas morning.
I hope I get some Christmas tree pops in my stocking this year.
Coming up, making a pie that's been a holiday tradition for centuries.
And later, a fruity cake that's no longer the punch line for holiday jokesters.
My favorite part of the season may be sitting down with family and friends for a delicious holiday meal.
Wait, that's actually my second-favorite part.
This is my favorite part.
In the heartland of America, Wick's Pies has been tempting people to eat their dessert first since the '60s.
We're in our third generation, I'm proud to say.
My dad founded it.
Couldn't find a pie he liked, so he started making his own.
And pumpkin pies have been around for centuries.
That large orange gourd made its debut as a pie filling in 16th Century Europe.
And the new world quickly caught on to this native fruit.
And by 1863, honest Abe Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday to feast on turkey and pumpkin pie.
Today, Wick's Pies are part of that holiday feast tradition.
It's a traditional holiday pie known throughout the country for its pie crust, and we always say that a good pie starts with a good crust.
To make enough crust for all their delicious pies, they start with a huge block of shortening in a mixing tub.
The tub is placed underneath a giant nozzle, and with the push of a button, flour is poured into the tub.
They'll blow through about in two and a half days.
The flour and shortening are sent to a mixer, where it's gently blended for six minutes.
The gentle process enhances the dough, makes it much flakier that way.
Once the water and salt are added, the dough rests for 20 minutes.
This allows the water to absorb into the flour, making the dough firm and easy to handle.
This massive amount of dough is then wheeled across the factory floor to the next step cutting.
An operator feeds the dough into a cube cutter that chops, flips, and dusts the rectangles of dough into pieces weighing nine ounces.
Then, much like grandma's rolling pin except bigger the rolling machine rolls the dough squares into thin, pie-like sheets, and drops them onto aluminum pie pans.
These raw pie crusts are now ready to be trimmed and crimped down to size.
That's a job for the gear rollers.
Gear rollers are designed to look like a crimp, and that forcing and pinching into that crust makes the fancy crimp around the pie shell.
These pie shells are only part of the operation.
What would a pumpkin pie be without the filling? To make that creamy, spicy, gooey goodness, they begin by funneling one at a time.
That gets combined with water into a huge mixing vat.
In a separate mixing vat, flour, sugar, eggs, and spices are blended together into a pasty dough.
Then, the milk is added to the mix.
And finally, the most important ingredient of all the pumpkin.
In a typical day, we'll go through about 5,100 pounds of pumpkin.
That's a lot of jack-o'- lanterns.
When the pie filler is blended to the proper texture, the spicy goodness gets pumped into holding tanks ready and waiting for the pie shells.
The creamy filling is pumped into the shells, creating raw pumpkin pies.
But they won't stay raw for long.
They're pushed away from the piston pumps toward the baking area.
This massive oven spans over 100 feet.
With 70 burners inside, these pies will bake for one hour at a toasty 385 degrees.
It'll actually hold You know they're done when they've reached that golden perfection.
As they exit the oven, mechanical fingers pick up the pies and place them onto a cooling conveyor that's stacked up like a superhighway.
To reach room temperature, the pies will ride this conveyor for an hour and a half.
That's about as long as my commute, but I'd ride that highway longer if it ended with a slice of pumpkin pie.
Each pie gets a wax-parchment-paper covering as they head over to the packing operation.
A shrink-wrap machine seals the now room-temperature pies so they can be boxed and sent to the freezers.
Those pies are completely frozen and pre-baked.
They're ready to just thaw and serve.
That means no messy kitchen, so you can enjoy these pies throughout the holiday season.
We sell about a million pies a year.
Sounds like some people are sneaking an extra slice of pumpkin pie.
Coming up, fresh-off-the-griddle potato pancakes for keeping kosher.
And later, how do they get all those cranberries in one single can? For most Jewish families celebrating the holiday season, the festivities just wouldn't be complete without a plate full of latkes.
Latkes is a Yiddish term for pancakes, and these pancakes are the perfect snack-sized table treat.
Potato pancake has been around for generations and is something that families have always cooked around the holiday time, especially Hanukkah.
And for those who want that homemade taste without shredding their own potatoes and dicing their own onions, Dr.
Praeger's has a modern take on this holiday classic.
We thought we could add that convenience by doing that all for you here, and the taste is very similar to what you'd find at home.
As the name implies, the main ingredient in Dr.
Praeger's potato pancakes is potatoes and lots of them.
When we manufacture potato pancakes, we're going through All those potatoes come into the factory shredded and frozen.
The shredded potatoes are stored in large totes.
There are totes for all the ingredients, including diced onions, eggs, and potato flakes.
All those ingredients get hoisted up and dumped into this massive paddle blender along with a mix of special spices added by hand.
Our blender is a dual-shaft paddle blender that has the capacity of over 8,000 pounds of mixing.
The paddle blender churns the batter around for about 15 minutes, long enough to make sure it's the right consistency not too liquid-y, or else it will fall apart along the way.
Then, this potato puree empties into clean metal totes and is wheeled into the next room, where they're hoisted up and poured into the top of this giant steel contraption called the patty former.
Deep in the belly of the patty former, the mix is pulled by an auger so that it fills all the plates of the patty press, a device that works with extreme efficiency.
Our machine has the capabilities of pressing over 350 patties per minute.
The potato patties are pushed out of the former and head down a conveyor through a 40-foot-long fryer.
This is the longest deep fryer I have ever seen.
The fryer is set at 385 degrees.
Each of these little latkes are fried for about 28 seconds.
That's pretty quick just enough frying time to pre-cook the patties.
The rest of the baking happens in your own oven, which helps to guarantee that homemade taste and gets your house smelling so good your guests will think you made them yourself.
Once the patties reach the end of the fryer, they are drizzled with cold water to remove any excess oil that may be lingering on top of the patty.
After a quick rinse, the potato patties head on into the spiral freezer, where they get a serious blast of cold air.
The spiral freezer is set at minus-25 degrees.
The holding time for each patty is 30 minutes.
Those glacial temperatures keep the potato pancakes frozen all the way through packaging, which is where they're headed next.
Locked in a deep freeze, the potato pancakes shuttle single file down a conveyor to the wrapping station.
Our wrapping station runs at over 350 pieces a minute, so each patty is separated and individually wrapped.
The potato patties then get packed by hand six to a box.
The packaged pancakes head over to an X-ray machine to make sure there's nothing in there that doesn't belong.
Once it leaves the X-ray machine, it will go to the packing station, where we will take our retail boxes and place them inside a master case.
The master case will be closed and labeled correctly, and off to the consumer it goes.
A full day would consist of producing 26,000 pounds of finished product, which actually results in over 170,000 patties.
Whether you prefer them with a dollop of sour cream or a side of applesauce, these potato pancakes definitely make a special addition to the holiday table.
Coming up, a dessert that's become a punch line during the holidays gets a makeover.
And later, what gives gingersnaps their bite? Fruitcakes have gotten a bad rap over the years as thepaperweight of holiday gifts.
But these fruitcakes might just change your mind.
The fruitcake has its fruity roots in 18th Century Europe as a ceremonial type of cake to celebrate the end of the harvest.
And as the story goes, way back in old England, fruit-and-nut-cake slices were handed out to women who sang Christmas carols.
Now, that embodies the season of giving.
I really think fruitcake is a great holiday cake.
It tastes like Christmas to me.
And at Valerie Confections, they've made it their mission to restore the fruitcake to its rightful place in holiday history.
It's like this great kaleidoscope of color and flavor.
When you first bite into it, you get all those different fruits and different bites.
Yep, just like those fruitcakes of the holidays past, it all starts with the fruit.
First, the bakers prepare a colorful blend of dried fruits by hand apricots, pears, apples, white figs, thinly sliced golden raisins, and even some crunchy almonds.
One of the most satisfying things of making the fruitcake is just looking at the colors and textures together.
It's gorgeous.
This mixed assortment of dried fruits gets a special added touch vanilla scraped right from the bean.
What would fruitcake be without the booze? A generous amount of brandy is added to each batch, but it's not just for the flavor.
If we were to use fresh fruit, it would only be stable for maybe five or six days.
So, using that dried fruit that's been soaked in booze, these are natural preservatives.
After being thoroughly mixed together, the brandy, fruit, and vanilla beans are set aside to soak for three to four days.
You get a more intense flavor if you soak it longer.
As the boozy fruit blend patiently ferments, it's time to get started on the cake batter.
First, butter is gently whipped in the mixer.
Light-brown and white sugars are added and creamed together until it becomes light and fluffy.
Next come the eggs, 24 of them, one at a time.
Once it's all thoroughly mixed for about 10 minutes, it's time for the dry ingredients a pinch of salt, a dash of baking soda, and some good old-fashioned all-purpose flour.
I like using all-purpose flour for cake because it creates a nice, sturdy cake.
Before long, it looks like the cake batter you might mix in your own kitchen.
Then, the real fun begins.
The four-day-old concoction of dried fruit and booze is slowly folded into the batch by a heavy-duty mixing paddle.
Because it's big and it is a dense, thick batter.
So, that huge paddle just sort of works it and incorporates it with a lot more agility than my weak arms could.
The mixing paddle moves slowly, gently blending the batch without breaking down the fruit into mush, 'cause nobody wants mushy fruit.
Once it's perfectly blended, it's time to turn this batter into delectable fruitcakes.
First, a table full of 5x9-inch loaf pans are coated with nonstick cooking spray and lined with wax paper.
Then, using what looks like a giant ice-cream scooper, they load the pans up with batter a couple dozen at a time.
Generally, about 24 cakes per batch, and then we just do it again and again and again.
Because the cake batter is so dense with drunken-fruit goodness, it takes longer to bake than an everyday cake.
The cakes are placed in a 300-degree oven for 90 minutes.
Doing it at a lower temperature makes sure that it doesn't get over-baked on the exterior or overly brown or dry.
Once they come out of the oven, the beautifully browned cakes are wrapped in parchment paper and set aside to rest for two hours.
Two hours later, these rich, savory loaves are ready for packaging, which is almost as pretty as the fruitcake itself.
We have this Valerie Confections print that we use, and we also do, like, a craft parchment.
And we stamp things on them.
You won't find these cakes propping open doors this holiday season.
If you can't get to the store, you can order these beauties online.
This is one gift people are going to be excited to unwrap.
A buttery, almond-y, luscious, rich cake you want to eat every day of the year.
The holidays are a time for family, friends, and lots and lots of treats.
And nothing makes a table of goodies livelier than gingersnaps.
Here in Music City Nashville, Tennessee Willa's Shortbreads bakes up handmade gingersnaps to die for.
I've always loved gingersnaps.
It's just such a wonderful, delicate flavor and the cinnamon and the cloves and the ginger.
It's just Christmas all over.
That Christmas flavor was first baked into cakes and breads by German master bakers back in the 17th century.
Monks in Germany, I believe, came up with the original recipe for gingersnaps.
And like they did over three centuries ago, it all starts with the usual suspects oil, eggs, sugar.
But then comes Willa's special ingredient blackstrap molasses.
Although it may as well be called "blacksnap" molasses.
Using the blackstrap molasses is one thing that separates us from other gingersnaps, because it is such an intense flavor in there that really pops the whole cookie.
All that goodness goes into the cutter mixer.
We use the cutter mixer for two really good reasons.
One is that's one that Willa used for years and years.
And it imparts a lighter texture, we feel, to the dough than a big paddle mixer would.
And don't forget the spices.
Cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and a little bit of salt join the party.
A quick churn of the paddles to blend the ingredients creates a gooey black liquid.
And then comes the flour and baking soda that will thicken the mix into a doughy batter.
The cutter mixer blades churn the batter while the hand-operated crank scrapes the sides to ensure all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
Once the dough has reached its ideal consistency looks kind of like soft Tootsie rolls it's transferred to the deposit, and with every crank of the handle, little gingery dough balls are dropped onto a cookie sheet by the wire cutter.
Now, this is cookies made old-school style.
It's an art, not a science.
It takes a lot of time and a lot of practice to get a feel for the dough, how they drop, and that's one thing we've really gotten good at that.
But this wire cutter doesn't just cut cookies.
It can play a mean rhythm and blues too.
Of course, being in Nashville, we use a guitar string for our wire.
And we tune it to about a middle "C.
" Bing, bing, bing, bing! Each tray of perfectly aligned gingersnaps in waiting are slid onto racks.
Once the racks are full of raw cookies, they're wheeled over to the rotating oven, where they're baked for 11 minutes at 350 degrees constantly turning to ensure an evenly baked cookie.
Then, when you hear the ding they're taken out of the oven and rolled to the wall of fans.
No, not a wall of country-music fans but actual fans that cool the cookies to room temperature.
All that's left to do now is package them up.
Our larger cookies are packed in a tin, which holds right at 48 cookies each.
Our smaller gingersnaps come in either a four-ounce, six-ounce, or eight-ounce bag, which is then packed inside of our tins or boxes.
And don't forget to leave a few out for Santa.
You might just get something special under the tree in return.
Coming up, how many cranberries go into a can of cranberry sauce? You'll be amazed at the answer.
It just wouldn't be a holiday dinner without turkey, stuffing, and of course, cranberry sauce.
And for me, the only way to go is this classic jiggly log of jelly.
People say, "My mother insists on making fresh cranberry sauce, but it's this piece of history that we all have come to love.
" So, how did cranberry jelly become a holiday have-to? Some experts believe it's because, in 1864, General Ulysses S.
Grant ordered cranberries to be served to soldiers as part of their holiday meal.
The first canned cranberry sauce hit the shelves in 1947, and it's a tasty trend that continues to this day.
So, how do they make all that cranberry sauce? It starts with cranberries loads of them.
Incredibly, it takes 200 cranberries just to make a single can of cranberry sauce.
We deliver anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 barrels a day.
And a barrel of cranberries is 100 a pound.
In case you don't have a calculator handy, that's about 200,000 pounds of cranberries a day.
In season, they're brought here fresh to the plant, then spend about 24 hours in the freezer to keep them nice and firm.
A forklift driver pulls out the crates of frozen cranberries, spears them so they flow freely, then dumps them into massive hoppers where they travel through an optical scanner that gives them a once-over for quality control.
The optical scanner has a laser that is looking and scanning.
And it takes a picture of the cranberry, so it compares a good cranberry to that picture, pixel by pixel, and if it sees any defects, it can recognize it and then reject it accordingly.
While the cranberries that pass muster bounce merrily along the belt Ocean Spray starts processing another ingredient, something they call a presscake.
Actually, these blocks of pressed cakes are cranberries with their juices squashed out.
So, really, what you're left with is a lot of cranberry skins and cranberry seeds.
The cranberry skins are very high in pectin content, which is a good ingredient for the gelling process with jellied sauce.
They go through tons of presscake each day to be exact.
The dry cakes are dumped into a ribbon blender, splashed with a dab of water to reconstitute them, broken up, and mixed.
The next step is a dual process, and it happens inside these heated, stainless-steel pipes.
The reconstituted presscake is pumped toward this high-tech machine called the Bertocchi extractor.
At the same time, the whole cranberries are piped into another extractor.
These machines cook the dual mixes at 200 degrees, turning them into a thick puree.
The leftover solids, like the seeds, are removed, while the cranberry and presscake purees move on to the next phase.
The two purees are then combined with the sweetener at a specific ratio to ensure that the taste as well as the gel strength is just right to give you that log that you're looking for.
The sweet combination of cranberry goodness is then piped into a pasteurizer, and then onto the next step, canning.
First, though, a quick rinse.
The cans are fed from the depalletizer on a series of belts.
The cans then go through a rinsing operation, where we rinse the can to ensure that there's no foreign material.
These rotating pump fillers shoot 14 ounces of red, delicious cranberry sauce into each passing can.
The filled cans are shuttled downstream to the seamer that seals the deal with an airtight lid.
The next stop for these cans of sweet stuff is the cooler, where, inside this steel behemoth, the cans spiral in and out of a chilled bath for 20 minutes, cooling them down to 90 degrees.
Then, the cooled cans are labeled, packaged in trays, wrapped, and set on pallets.
But they'll have to sit for a couple of days before the liquid inside becomes that jiggly sauce we all know and love.
It takes about 48 hours for the pectin to set up and give the gel strength that we're looking for.
Along the way, a few randomly selected cans are tested for quality control.
They look for proper can vacuum, sweetness, and of course, gel strength so it'll be sure to jiggle right out of the can.
Once they're sure the sauce is perfect, it's on to holiday dinner tables across the country a lot of tables.
If you were to take all the cans of cranberry sauce consumed during the holiday season and you put them end to end, they would stretch the length of 67,500 football fields.
Coming up, a bark that's as good as its bite.
And later, a unique inside-out candy bar that celebrates the harvest.
All holiday traditions were new once, and I have a feeling this new holiday treat is gonna be around for a long time.
Say hello to peppermint bark.
It's called peppermint bark, and serving it over the holidays may make you as popular as Santa himself.
Peppermint bark is made with candy canes, which you really just relate to the Christmas holiday season.
The flavors are so good and vibrant.
It's a really fun indulgence.
I love classic recipes, and that's a lot of what I do.
But peppermint bark wasn't something that I grew up with.
But we got so many requests for us to make peppermint bark at our company that I said, "Okay, let me figure out a recipe that I really like.
" And then I started eating it, and I was like, "Whoa, this is so good.
I totally get it now.
" Valerie Confections, those same folks who make that awesome fruitcake, created a handcrafted recipe so addictive that Valerie and her staff can't make the bark fast enough.
We make hundreds of pounds of peppermint bark, and we always sell out.
And every year, we say, "We have to start making it earlier," and we always sell out.
And we always wish that we had made more.
And if you want to know why it sells out, well, peppermint bark is a triple-layered treat that begins with combining sugar, water, and glucose and bringing it to a boil on the stovetop.
It takes approximately 12 minutes for the solution to reach its target temperature of 310 degrees.
Then the special ingredient is added all-natural peppermint oil.
The entire facility all of a sudden smells intense of peppermint.
Next, that molten sweetness is removed from the stovetop and poured onto a marble table.
Then, red dye is added.
But here's the trick Rock candy hardens fast, so it's a race against the clock to mix in the dye.
If you don't move really quickly and integrate the red color, then you get an uneven color and also an uneven candy.
It's a team effort getting the candy color uniform.
Two or three people work together in a dance of spatulas spreading the peppermint topping out before it cools and becomes solid.
You guys need any help? Once cooled, Valerie uses her scraper to loosen the candy from the marble, and then breaks the hardened peppermint into two-to-three-inch pieces, and the minty goodness is set aside.
The next stage is the creamy chocolate layer, which will be the base of the confection.
is warmed to precisely 88.
7 degrees.
And then, through a spigot, it's poured onto the sheet pan.
It's sweet but not too sweet.
It's just a perfectly balanced dark chocolate.
The chocolate-covered sheet pan is moved to a vibrating table, where it shakes the oozing chocolate all around the pan.
It removes all air pockets from the chocolate and creates a nice, even surface.
With the chocolate still warm and silky, dried mint leaves are sprinkled on top, embedding them right into the chocolate layer, for an extra added minty taste.
Then the minty chocolate layer is set on cooling racks for about four minutes.
While that's cooling, the candy creators prepare to add the next layer, white chocolate.
The warm, luscious white chocolate gets ladled over the cooled tray of peppermint-embedded bittersweet chocolate.
White chocolate isn't technically chocolate.
It is cocoa fat and sugar and milk solids, which is creamy and luscious and really balances out the intensity of the The white-and-bittersweet- chocolate-layered goodness is brought back to the vibrating table to get shaken, not stirred.
But then, before the white chocolate has a chance to harden, the bright-red peppermint candy chunks are sprinkled over the entire surface.
Wow, that looks so good.
Per tray of peppermint bark, we sprinkle about a pound of peppermint candy.
The colorful, crunchy candy delight is left to rest for the next hour so the layers can bind together sort of a candy bonding moment.
The end result a beautiful handmade tray of peppermint bark.
But it's not package-ready yet.
The bark needs to be broken up, and just like everything else in the making of peppermint bark, this is done by hand, and quickly, before the chocolate melts.
Once all the candy is broken up, the crunchy chunks are ready for packaging.
The experience of opening a box of Valerie Confections has always been really important to us.
Each box is lined with a layer of glassine wax paper.
Then, 10 ounces of peppermint bark are placed inside the box.
Then the box of tasty treats gets sealed with a custom sticker sand tied up in a perfect red bow.
I love the reveal of it, because it's so vibrant.
There's so much color and texture happening.
Every time you open a box, it's like unwrapping a present.
Candy bars come in all shapes and sizes, but few look or taste quite like our next holiday treat.
They call it the Harvest Bar.
But this ain't your grandfather's granola bar.
With two kinds of chocolate, plus fruit and nuts, Long Grove Confectionery in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, has created confection perfection.
The Harvest Bar is a combination of a chocolate bar with a little bit of fall favorites.
You can't really go wrong with chocolate, but chocolate with almonds and cranberries and white chips, it really is a nice combination.
Those tasty ingredients are locked inside a most uniquely shaped coating, bar none.
We started with very traditional shapes, and we had rectangles and squares and could put chocolate in them.
Then we thought, "Well, what could we do a little bit different?" What they did was create a pumpkin-shaped piece of candy that would truly capture the holidays in three dimensions.
We have a wonderful sculptor on staff who carved in the clay the design that our artist developed on paper.
Using that clay mold, the company makes And every batch starts the same way with 10 pounds of milk chocolate heated to 200 degrees melted in a vat.
Hey, can I lick the spoon? Then the melted chocolate is pumped into the plastic molds to form half of the treat, making this a see-through candy bar.
And what you see is what you eat.
Almonds imported from California, midwestern cranberries, and white chocolate chips from right here in Illinois.
It's all done by hand one candy mold at a time.
And it's what makes this candy unique.
When all those yummy ingredients have been added, they pour on more milk chocolate to create the top half.
The more chocolate, the better.
Each mold is done individually.
It'll take a couple of days to make them all.
It's not a short process.
Now the Harvest Bars are taken to the walk-in cooler, where they'll cool off for about an hour at a brisk 20 degrees.
Once thoroughly chilled, they're taken out of the freezer and popped out of the molds.
Now it's time for them to get a little trim.
Each bar needs to be trimmed in order to take off any little excess that may have spilled over the side in the process of filling the mold, so that it looks as pristine and special as possible when it's packaged.
There's no hiding any flaws in these Harvest Bars, because they're wrapped in cellophane all the better to see their festive ingredients.
It's a great combination of chocolate and almonds and cranberries.
It's really a party in your mouth.
Well, there you have it our list of delectable treats that are sure to complement any holiday table.
Just make sure you save some goodies for yourself.
Happy holidays, everyone.
My favorite part of the season is having a pretty girl just constantly fix my sweater.
I have worked out too hard.
My muscles are popping out.
Let's go make some TV movie magic, man.
So put on your favorite holiday sweater I've got mine and sit back and enjoy this very special holiday edition of "Unwrapped 2.
0.
" We'll deck the halls with this iconic peppermint candy and carve out a slice of this classic holiday dessert.
We'll head to the source of this saucy sidekick and see how they put the bark in every bite if this sweet new holiday tradition.
We've got a list of these delicious treats and more that you'll be checking at least twice this holiday season.
The colorful, crunchy candy cane is as iconic as the holiday itself.
But how did it get its shape? Well the legend has it back in 1670, the choir master at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany used sugar sticks and bent them into a shepherd's crook to keep the kids quiet during the long services.
And that was the birth of the candy cane.
And now thanks to the Spangler candy company, candy canes not only keep kids busy, but they dangle from Christmas trees across America.
It's one of the most inexpensive ornaments you can put on your tree, and it's definitely the most tasty.
Spangler twists out candy canes to the tune of 250 million pieces a year.
And making these stripy, tasty treats we all love starts with the basics.
Sugar and corn syrup is heated into a molten sugary mix and poured out in 100-pound batches.
Once the batch drips out of the cooker, we send that to the color flavor mixer.
Two batches of candy are made simultaneously.
One is the crunchy core.
The other, the flavor stripes.
Flavors like peppermint, spearmint, and cinnamon My mouth is watering as we speak.
Once the flavor is added This batch is peppermint the colorful, sweet mixture is taken to the cooling table.
It's set at 180 degrees, chilling it down, as giant curved paddles that look like heavy-duty snow shovels knead and mix the candy.
Hey, I wonder if I could borrow one of these shovels this winter.
From here, the peppermint candy mix is off to the batch former where it will start to really take shape.
The rotating cylinders roll the flavored candy into long, thick logs.
Take the log out of the batch former, place it on the steam-jacketed striping table where we lay out the stripes the different-colored stripes.
We have a solid red stripe, and then we have two red and two white pinstripes.
We apply a little bit of water to the stripes so that it adheres to the candy cane.
And check this out.
Each candy cane stripe is applied by hand to the large candy core.
We have some very skilled laborers that apply the stripes that have been doing it for years and years.
Now, those folks are the real-deal candy stripers.
Once the core gets its stripes, it's off to the batch roller to get that massive hunk of candy to the size we all know and love.
This candy log about 12 inches in diameter gets rolled and squeezed down to about the size of your pinky.
A little flame to make it pliable, then it's fed through the twister, where You guessed it the candy gets its familiar twist.
The twisted, stripy candy is ready to be sliced down to the right length by the knife chain and off to the wrapping machine.
But wait.
Where's the hook? We have to wrap the candy cane before the crook is put on them so that the candy doesn't crack.
You might call it a hook, maybe a crook, but come hook or by crook, this next step gives the candy cane its signature bend.
The crook is made mechanically.
The straight piece of candy falls onto the crooker deck where it's stuck between a crooker cone and a hard place.
Slowly, the cane takes shape.
The candy is wrapped and crooked while it's still warm.
Otherwise they'd break at the bend.
Well, there you go.
Now that looks like the candy canes we all know and love.
Just one more step between you and that minty flavor the cooling belt.
We try to get the candy canes down to about 100 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit so they can be packed easier and they won't break.
The canes are hand packed into 80-count jars, stacked into cartons, and housed in temperature-controlled warehouses until the halls are decked and bells are jingled, signaling the season is upon us.
Decking the halls during the holiday season always includes a brightly lit and festively decorated tree.
But how about a tree you can crunch? Based in Weymouth, Massachusetts, Melville Candy Company created a candy that even Santa's elves would approve of handmade tree pops.
The tree is the number-one hit with the kids.
They love the tree.
Melville's is a family affair that started back in the 1920s making candy from molds.
But it wasn't until the '90s when they created the Christmas tree lollipop, and it was an instant hit.
The tree is pretty much an iconic type of shape.
People love the shape of the tree.
I think it's become something that people look for every holiday season, and enjoy eating them and enjoy giving them and also to decorate with.
And these tree pops, like most candy, begin with sugar, corn syrup, and water.
Those raw ingredients are cooked down until it becomes liquid sugar.
Meanwhile, Melville's signature tree-pop molds are prepped and ready to go with their unique design element.
Pieces of crushed peppermint placed in the mold, along with the lollipop stick, give it a festive flavor and awesome look, kind of like ornaments for a tree.
These tree molds are one of a kind.
Each mold is actually designed by our in-house team, and the tree is one of the earliest ones that we started with, so it's very close to our home.
It's a really cool, unique design for us.
With the liquid candy hot off the stove, the peppermint flavor and green dye are quickly added and mixed in.
Before the sweet mixture has a chance to cool down, it's carefully hand-poured into each mold.
Then, it's take five until it hardens.
It usually takes three to five minutes for the trees to actually cool down and are able to come out of the molds.
Once the pops are completely hardened, they're simply lifted out of the molds and are ready to be bagged.
Someone takes each bag and puts it around each lollipop one at a time.
The bags are heat-sealed and ready to be stuffed into Christmas stockings.
Generally we make around about 40,000 to 50,000 units a day of the trees.
You heard that right.
Christmas tree lollipops a day during the holiday season.
That's a lot of licks.
I can't wait for Christmas morning.
I hope I get some Christmas tree pops in my stocking this year.
Coming up, making a pie that's been a holiday tradition for centuries.
And later, a fruity cake that's no longer the punch line for holiday jokesters.
My favorite part of the season may be sitting down with family and friends for a delicious holiday meal.
Wait, that's actually my second-favorite part.
This is my favorite part.
In the heartland of America, Wick's Pies has been tempting people to eat their dessert first since the '60s.
We're in our third generation, I'm proud to say.
My dad founded it.
Couldn't find a pie he liked, so he started making his own.
And pumpkin pies have been around for centuries.
That large orange gourd made its debut as a pie filling in 16th Century Europe.
And the new world quickly caught on to this native fruit.
And by 1863, honest Abe Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday to feast on turkey and pumpkin pie.
Today, Wick's Pies are part of that holiday feast tradition.
It's a traditional holiday pie known throughout the country for its pie crust, and we always say that a good pie starts with a good crust.
To make enough crust for all their delicious pies, they start with a huge block of shortening in a mixing tub.
The tub is placed underneath a giant nozzle, and with the push of a button, flour is poured into the tub.
They'll blow through about in two and a half days.
The flour and shortening are sent to a mixer, where it's gently blended for six minutes.
The gentle process enhances the dough, makes it much flakier that way.
Once the water and salt are added, the dough rests for 20 minutes.
This allows the water to absorb into the flour, making the dough firm and easy to handle.
This massive amount of dough is then wheeled across the factory floor to the next step cutting.
An operator feeds the dough into a cube cutter that chops, flips, and dusts the rectangles of dough into pieces weighing nine ounces.
Then, much like grandma's rolling pin except bigger the rolling machine rolls the dough squares into thin, pie-like sheets, and drops them onto aluminum pie pans.
These raw pie crusts are now ready to be trimmed and crimped down to size.
That's a job for the gear rollers.
Gear rollers are designed to look like a crimp, and that forcing and pinching into that crust makes the fancy crimp around the pie shell.
These pie shells are only part of the operation.
What would a pumpkin pie be without the filling? To make that creamy, spicy, gooey goodness, they begin by funneling one at a time.
That gets combined with water into a huge mixing vat.
In a separate mixing vat, flour, sugar, eggs, and spices are blended together into a pasty dough.
Then, the milk is added to the mix.
And finally, the most important ingredient of all the pumpkin.
In a typical day, we'll go through about 5,100 pounds of pumpkin.
That's a lot of jack-o'- lanterns.
When the pie filler is blended to the proper texture, the spicy goodness gets pumped into holding tanks ready and waiting for the pie shells.
The creamy filling is pumped into the shells, creating raw pumpkin pies.
But they won't stay raw for long.
They're pushed away from the piston pumps toward the baking area.
This massive oven spans over 100 feet.
With 70 burners inside, these pies will bake for one hour at a toasty 385 degrees.
It'll actually hold You know they're done when they've reached that golden perfection.
As they exit the oven, mechanical fingers pick up the pies and place them onto a cooling conveyor that's stacked up like a superhighway.
To reach room temperature, the pies will ride this conveyor for an hour and a half.
That's about as long as my commute, but I'd ride that highway longer if it ended with a slice of pumpkin pie.
Each pie gets a wax-parchment-paper covering as they head over to the packing operation.
A shrink-wrap machine seals the now room-temperature pies so they can be boxed and sent to the freezers.
Those pies are completely frozen and pre-baked.
They're ready to just thaw and serve.
That means no messy kitchen, so you can enjoy these pies throughout the holiday season.
We sell about a million pies a year.
Sounds like some people are sneaking an extra slice of pumpkin pie.
Coming up, fresh-off-the-griddle potato pancakes for keeping kosher.
And later, how do they get all those cranberries in one single can? For most Jewish families celebrating the holiday season, the festivities just wouldn't be complete without a plate full of latkes.
Latkes is a Yiddish term for pancakes, and these pancakes are the perfect snack-sized table treat.
Potato pancake has been around for generations and is something that families have always cooked around the holiday time, especially Hanukkah.
And for those who want that homemade taste without shredding their own potatoes and dicing their own onions, Dr.
Praeger's has a modern take on this holiday classic.
We thought we could add that convenience by doing that all for you here, and the taste is very similar to what you'd find at home.
As the name implies, the main ingredient in Dr.
Praeger's potato pancakes is potatoes and lots of them.
When we manufacture potato pancakes, we're going through All those potatoes come into the factory shredded and frozen.
The shredded potatoes are stored in large totes.
There are totes for all the ingredients, including diced onions, eggs, and potato flakes.
All those ingredients get hoisted up and dumped into this massive paddle blender along with a mix of special spices added by hand.
Our blender is a dual-shaft paddle blender that has the capacity of over 8,000 pounds of mixing.
The paddle blender churns the batter around for about 15 minutes, long enough to make sure it's the right consistency not too liquid-y, or else it will fall apart along the way.
Then, this potato puree empties into clean metal totes and is wheeled into the next room, where they're hoisted up and poured into the top of this giant steel contraption called the patty former.
Deep in the belly of the patty former, the mix is pulled by an auger so that it fills all the plates of the patty press, a device that works with extreme efficiency.
Our machine has the capabilities of pressing over 350 patties per minute.
The potato patties are pushed out of the former and head down a conveyor through a 40-foot-long fryer.
This is the longest deep fryer I have ever seen.
The fryer is set at 385 degrees.
Each of these little latkes are fried for about 28 seconds.
That's pretty quick just enough frying time to pre-cook the patties.
The rest of the baking happens in your own oven, which helps to guarantee that homemade taste and gets your house smelling so good your guests will think you made them yourself.
Once the patties reach the end of the fryer, they are drizzled with cold water to remove any excess oil that may be lingering on top of the patty.
After a quick rinse, the potato patties head on into the spiral freezer, where they get a serious blast of cold air.
The spiral freezer is set at minus-25 degrees.
The holding time for each patty is 30 minutes.
Those glacial temperatures keep the potato pancakes frozen all the way through packaging, which is where they're headed next.
Locked in a deep freeze, the potato pancakes shuttle single file down a conveyor to the wrapping station.
Our wrapping station runs at over 350 pieces a minute, so each patty is separated and individually wrapped.
The potato patties then get packed by hand six to a box.
The packaged pancakes head over to an X-ray machine to make sure there's nothing in there that doesn't belong.
Once it leaves the X-ray machine, it will go to the packing station, where we will take our retail boxes and place them inside a master case.
The master case will be closed and labeled correctly, and off to the consumer it goes.
A full day would consist of producing 26,000 pounds of finished product, which actually results in over 170,000 patties.
Whether you prefer them with a dollop of sour cream or a side of applesauce, these potato pancakes definitely make a special addition to the holiday table.
Coming up, a dessert that's become a punch line during the holidays gets a makeover.
And later, what gives gingersnaps their bite? Fruitcakes have gotten a bad rap over the years as thepaperweight of holiday gifts.
But these fruitcakes might just change your mind.
The fruitcake has its fruity roots in 18th Century Europe as a ceremonial type of cake to celebrate the end of the harvest.
And as the story goes, way back in old England, fruit-and-nut-cake slices were handed out to women who sang Christmas carols.
Now, that embodies the season of giving.
I really think fruitcake is a great holiday cake.
It tastes like Christmas to me.
And at Valerie Confections, they've made it their mission to restore the fruitcake to its rightful place in holiday history.
It's like this great kaleidoscope of color and flavor.
When you first bite into it, you get all those different fruits and different bites.
Yep, just like those fruitcakes of the holidays past, it all starts with the fruit.
First, the bakers prepare a colorful blend of dried fruits by hand apricots, pears, apples, white figs, thinly sliced golden raisins, and even some crunchy almonds.
One of the most satisfying things of making the fruitcake is just looking at the colors and textures together.
It's gorgeous.
This mixed assortment of dried fruits gets a special added touch vanilla scraped right from the bean.
What would fruitcake be without the booze? A generous amount of brandy is added to each batch, but it's not just for the flavor.
If we were to use fresh fruit, it would only be stable for maybe five or six days.
So, using that dried fruit that's been soaked in booze, these are natural preservatives.
After being thoroughly mixed together, the brandy, fruit, and vanilla beans are set aside to soak for three to four days.
You get a more intense flavor if you soak it longer.
As the boozy fruit blend patiently ferments, it's time to get started on the cake batter.
First, butter is gently whipped in the mixer.
Light-brown and white sugars are added and creamed together until it becomes light and fluffy.
Next come the eggs, 24 of them, one at a time.
Once it's all thoroughly mixed for about 10 minutes, it's time for the dry ingredients a pinch of salt, a dash of baking soda, and some good old-fashioned all-purpose flour.
I like using all-purpose flour for cake because it creates a nice, sturdy cake.
Before long, it looks like the cake batter you might mix in your own kitchen.
Then, the real fun begins.
The four-day-old concoction of dried fruit and booze is slowly folded into the batch by a heavy-duty mixing paddle.
Because it's big and it is a dense, thick batter.
So, that huge paddle just sort of works it and incorporates it with a lot more agility than my weak arms could.
The mixing paddle moves slowly, gently blending the batch without breaking down the fruit into mush, 'cause nobody wants mushy fruit.
Once it's perfectly blended, it's time to turn this batter into delectable fruitcakes.
First, a table full of 5x9-inch loaf pans are coated with nonstick cooking spray and lined with wax paper.
Then, using what looks like a giant ice-cream scooper, they load the pans up with batter a couple dozen at a time.
Generally, about 24 cakes per batch, and then we just do it again and again and again.
Because the cake batter is so dense with drunken-fruit goodness, it takes longer to bake than an everyday cake.
The cakes are placed in a 300-degree oven for 90 minutes.
Doing it at a lower temperature makes sure that it doesn't get over-baked on the exterior or overly brown or dry.
Once they come out of the oven, the beautifully browned cakes are wrapped in parchment paper and set aside to rest for two hours.
Two hours later, these rich, savory loaves are ready for packaging, which is almost as pretty as the fruitcake itself.
We have this Valerie Confections print that we use, and we also do, like, a craft parchment.
And we stamp things on them.
You won't find these cakes propping open doors this holiday season.
If you can't get to the store, you can order these beauties online.
This is one gift people are going to be excited to unwrap.
A buttery, almond-y, luscious, rich cake you want to eat every day of the year.
The holidays are a time for family, friends, and lots and lots of treats.
And nothing makes a table of goodies livelier than gingersnaps.
Here in Music City Nashville, Tennessee Willa's Shortbreads bakes up handmade gingersnaps to die for.
I've always loved gingersnaps.
It's just such a wonderful, delicate flavor and the cinnamon and the cloves and the ginger.
It's just Christmas all over.
That Christmas flavor was first baked into cakes and breads by German master bakers back in the 17th century.
Monks in Germany, I believe, came up with the original recipe for gingersnaps.
And like they did over three centuries ago, it all starts with the usual suspects oil, eggs, sugar.
But then comes Willa's special ingredient blackstrap molasses.
Although it may as well be called "blacksnap" molasses.
Using the blackstrap molasses is one thing that separates us from other gingersnaps, because it is such an intense flavor in there that really pops the whole cookie.
All that goodness goes into the cutter mixer.
We use the cutter mixer for two really good reasons.
One is that's one that Willa used for years and years.
And it imparts a lighter texture, we feel, to the dough than a big paddle mixer would.
And don't forget the spices.
Cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and a little bit of salt join the party.
A quick churn of the paddles to blend the ingredients creates a gooey black liquid.
And then comes the flour and baking soda that will thicken the mix into a doughy batter.
The cutter mixer blades churn the batter while the hand-operated crank scrapes the sides to ensure all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
Once the dough has reached its ideal consistency looks kind of like soft Tootsie rolls it's transferred to the deposit, and with every crank of the handle, little gingery dough balls are dropped onto a cookie sheet by the wire cutter.
Now, this is cookies made old-school style.
It's an art, not a science.
It takes a lot of time and a lot of practice to get a feel for the dough, how they drop, and that's one thing we've really gotten good at that.
But this wire cutter doesn't just cut cookies.
It can play a mean rhythm and blues too.
Of course, being in Nashville, we use a guitar string for our wire.
And we tune it to about a middle "C.
" Bing, bing, bing, bing! Each tray of perfectly aligned gingersnaps in waiting are slid onto racks.
Once the racks are full of raw cookies, they're wheeled over to the rotating oven, where they're baked for 11 minutes at 350 degrees constantly turning to ensure an evenly baked cookie.
Then, when you hear the ding they're taken out of the oven and rolled to the wall of fans.
No, not a wall of country-music fans but actual fans that cool the cookies to room temperature.
All that's left to do now is package them up.
Our larger cookies are packed in a tin, which holds right at 48 cookies each.
Our smaller gingersnaps come in either a four-ounce, six-ounce, or eight-ounce bag, which is then packed inside of our tins or boxes.
And don't forget to leave a few out for Santa.
You might just get something special under the tree in return.
Coming up, how many cranberries go into a can of cranberry sauce? You'll be amazed at the answer.
It just wouldn't be a holiday dinner without turkey, stuffing, and of course, cranberry sauce.
And for me, the only way to go is this classic jiggly log of jelly.
People say, "My mother insists on making fresh cranberry sauce, but it's this piece of history that we all have come to love.
" So, how did cranberry jelly become a holiday have-to? Some experts believe it's because, in 1864, General Ulysses S.
Grant ordered cranberries to be served to soldiers as part of their holiday meal.
The first canned cranberry sauce hit the shelves in 1947, and it's a tasty trend that continues to this day.
So, how do they make all that cranberry sauce? It starts with cranberries loads of them.
Incredibly, it takes 200 cranberries just to make a single can of cranberry sauce.
We deliver anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 barrels a day.
And a barrel of cranberries is 100 a pound.
In case you don't have a calculator handy, that's about 200,000 pounds of cranberries a day.
In season, they're brought here fresh to the plant, then spend about 24 hours in the freezer to keep them nice and firm.
A forklift driver pulls out the crates of frozen cranberries, spears them so they flow freely, then dumps them into massive hoppers where they travel through an optical scanner that gives them a once-over for quality control.
The optical scanner has a laser that is looking and scanning.
And it takes a picture of the cranberry, so it compares a good cranberry to that picture, pixel by pixel, and if it sees any defects, it can recognize it and then reject it accordingly.
While the cranberries that pass muster bounce merrily along the belt Ocean Spray starts processing another ingredient, something they call a presscake.
Actually, these blocks of pressed cakes are cranberries with their juices squashed out.
So, really, what you're left with is a lot of cranberry skins and cranberry seeds.
The cranberry skins are very high in pectin content, which is a good ingredient for the gelling process with jellied sauce.
They go through tons of presscake each day to be exact.
The dry cakes are dumped into a ribbon blender, splashed with a dab of water to reconstitute them, broken up, and mixed.
The next step is a dual process, and it happens inside these heated, stainless-steel pipes.
The reconstituted presscake is pumped toward this high-tech machine called the Bertocchi extractor.
At the same time, the whole cranberries are piped into another extractor.
These machines cook the dual mixes at 200 degrees, turning them into a thick puree.
The leftover solids, like the seeds, are removed, while the cranberry and presscake purees move on to the next phase.
The two purees are then combined with the sweetener at a specific ratio to ensure that the taste as well as the gel strength is just right to give you that log that you're looking for.
The sweet combination of cranberry goodness is then piped into a pasteurizer, and then onto the next step, canning.
First, though, a quick rinse.
The cans are fed from the depalletizer on a series of belts.
The cans then go through a rinsing operation, where we rinse the can to ensure that there's no foreign material.
These rotating pump fillers shoot 14 ounces of red, delicious cranberry sauce into each passing can.
The filled cans are shuttled downstream to the seamer that seals the deal with an airtight lid.
The next stop for these cans of sweet stuff is the cooler, where, inside this steel behemoth, the cans spiral in and out of a chilled bath for 20 minutes, cooling them down to 90 degrees.
Then, the cooled cans are labeled, packaged in trays, wrapped, and set on pallets.
But they'll have to sit for a couple of days before the liquid inside becomes that jiggly sauce we all know and love.
It takes about 48 hours for the pectin to set up and give the gel strength that we're looking for.
Along the way, a few randomly selected cans are tested for quality control.
They look for proper can vacuum, sweetness, and of course, gel strength so it'll be sure to jiggle right out of the can.
Once they're sure the sauce is perfect, it's on to holiday dinner tables across the country a lot of tables.
If you were to take all the cans of cranberry sauce consumed during the holiday season and you put them end to end, they would stretch the length of 67,500 football fields.
Coming up, a bark that's as good as its bite.
And later, a unique inside-out candy bar that celebrates the harvest.
All holiday traditions were new once, and I have a feeling this new holiday treat is gonna be around for a long time.
Say hello to peppermint bark.
It's called peppermint bark, and serving it over the holidays may make you as popular as Santa himself.
Peppermint bark is made with candy canes, which you really just relate to the Christmas holiday season.
The flavors are so good and vibrant.
It's a really fun indulgence.
I love classic recipes, and that's a lot of what I do.
But peppermint bark wasn't something that I grew up with.
But we got so many requests for us to make peppermint bark at our company that I said, "Okay, let me figure out a recipe that I really like.
" And then I started eating it, and I was like, "Whoa, this is so good.
I totally get it now.
" Valerie Confections, those same folks who make that awesome fruitcake, created a handcrafted recipe so addictive that Valerie and her staff can't make the bark fast enough.
We make hundreds of pounds of peppermint bark, and we always sell out.
And every year, we say, "We have to start making it earlier," and we always sell out.
And we always wish that we had made more.
And if you want to know why it sells out, well, peppermint bark is a triple-layered treat that begins with combining sugar, water, and glucose and bringing it to a boil on the stovetop.
It takes approximately 12 minutes for the solution to reach its target temperature of 310 degrees.
Then the special ingredient is added all-natural peppermint oil.
The entire facility all of a sudden smells intense of peppermint.
Next, that molten sweetness is removed from the stovetop and poured onto a marble table.
Then, red dye is added.
But here's the trick Rock candy hardens fast, so it's a race against the clock to mix in the dye.
If you don't move really quickly and integrate the red color, then you get an uneven color and also an uneven candy.
It's a team effort getting the candy color uniform.
Two or three people work together in a dance of spatulas spreading the peppermint topping out before it cools and becomes solid.
You guys need any help? Once cooled, Valerie uses her scraper to loosen the candy from the marble, and then breaks the hardened peppermint into two-to-three-inch pieces, and the minty goodness is set aside.
The next stage is the creamy chocolate layer, which will be the base of the confection.
is warmed to precisely 88.
7 degrees.
And then, through a spigot, it's poured onto the sheet pan.
It's sweet but not too sweet.
It's just a perfectly balanced dark chocolate.
The chocolate-covered sheet pan is moved to a vibrating table, where it shakes the oozing chocolate all around the pan.
It removes all air pockets from the chocolate and creates a nice, even surface.
With the chocolate still warm and silky, dried mint leaves are sprinkled on top, embedding them right into the chocolate layer, for an extra added minty taste.
Then the minty chocolate layer is set on cooling racks for about four minutes.
While that's cooling, the candy creators prepare to add the next layer, white chocolate.
The warm, luscious white chocolate gets ladled over the cooled tray of peppermint-embedded bittersweet chocolate.
White chocolate isn't technically chocolate.
It is cocoa fat and sugar and milk solids, which is creamy and luscious and really balances out the intensity of the The white-and-bittersweet- chocolate-layered goodness is brought back to the vibrating table to get shaken, not stirred.
But then, before the white chocolate has a chance to harden, the bright-red peppermint candy chunks are sprinkled over the entire surface.
Wow, that looks so good.
Per tray of peppermint bark, we sprinkle about a pound of peppermint candy.
The colorful, crunchy candy delight is left to rest for the next hour so the layers can bind together sort of a candy bonding moment.
The end result a beautiful handmade tray of peppermint bark.
But it's not package-ready yet.
The bark needs to be broken up, and just like everything else in the making of peppermint bark, this is done by hand, and quickly, before the chocolate melts.
Once all the candy is broken up, the crunchy chunks are ready for packaging.
The experience of opening a box of Valerie Confections has always been really important to us.
Each box is lined with a layer of glassine wax paper.
Then, 10 ounces of peppermint bark are placed inside the box.
Then the box of tasty treats gets sealed with a custom sticker sand tied up in a perfect red bow.
I love the reveal of it, because it's so vibrant.
There's so much color and texture happening.
Every time you open a box, it's like unwrapping a present.
Candy bars come in all shapes and sizes, but few look or taste quite like our next holiday treat.
They call it the Harvest Bar.
But this ain't your grandfather's granola bar.
With two kinds of chocolate, plus fruit and nuts, Long Grove Confectionery in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, has created confection perfection.
The Harvest Bar is a combination of a chocolate bar with a little bit of fall favorites.
You can't really go wrong with chocolate, but chocolate with almonds and cranberries and white chips, it really is a nice combination.
Those tasty ingredients are locked inside a most uniquely shaped coating, bar none.
We started with very traditional shapes, and we had rectangles and squares and could put chocolate in them.
Then we thought, "Well, what could we do a little bit different?" What they did was create a pumpkin-shaped piece of candy that would truly capture the holidays in three dimensions.
We have a wonderful sculptor on staff who carved in the clay the design that our artist developed on paper.
Using that clay mold, the company makes And every batch starts the same way with 10 pounds of milk chocolate heated to 200 degrees melted in a vat.
Hey, can I lick the spoon? Then the melted chocolate is pumped into the plastic molds to form half of the treat, making this a see-through candy bar.
And what you see is what you eat.
Almonds imported from California, midwestern cranberries, and white chocolate chips from right here in Illinois.
It's all done by hand one candy mold at a time.
And it's what makes this candy unique.
When all those yummy ingredients have been added, they pour on more milk chocolate to create the top half.
The more chocolate, the better.
Each mold is done individually.
It'll take a couple of days to make them all.
It's not a short process.
Now the Harvest Bars are taken to the walk-in cooler, where they'll cool off for about an hour at a brisk 20 degrees.
Once thoroughly chilled, they're taken out of the freezer and popped out of the molds.
Now it's time for them to get a little trim.
Each bar needs to be trimmed in order to take off any little excess that may have spilled over the side in the process of filling the mold, so that it looks as pristine and special as possible when it's packaged.
There's no hiding any flaws in these Harvest Bars, because they're wrapped in cellophane all the better to see their festive ingredients.
It's a great combination of chocolate and almonds and cranberries.
It's really a party in your mouth.
Well, there you have it our list of delectable treats that are sure to complement any holiday table.
Just make sure you save some goodies for yourself.
Happy holidays, everyone.
My favorite part of the season is having a pretty girl just constantly fix my sweater.
I have worked out too hard.
My muscles are popping out.
Let's go make some TV movie magic, man.