Curveballs & Confections; The science behind stadium sweets

All right, so what's the difference between regular bubblegum and chewing gum? And what makes cotton candy so darn fluffy? All those questions we're going to get answers to. Abby Thiel, better known as Abby the Food Scientist, is here with us now with the science behind some of our favorite ballpark sweets. Okay, let's start with the gum because it's my favorite. It simulates some of the players' favorite. Yes, yes. But there's obviously, like Brian said, there's a difference between bubblegum and chewing gum. Yes, yes. And when we thought of baseball candy, the first thing I thought of was Big League Chew. which is, of course, this spaghetti or shredded bubblegum. So if you will take some bubblegum. Oh, you wanted the bubblegum? You can do bubblegum. You know what? It's been so long. Go back and shove it in the side of my cheeks here. No, go for it. I don't know that kind of bubblegum. I think it passed me up. Yes, yes. And then I have regular chewing gum, so we're going to do a little experiment of the difference between a bubblegum and a chewing gum. So get chewing. A flashback to my childhood. But thank you for that. Yes, yes. And you probably haven't had this much sugar in a while. I just love it. Now, can you blow me a bubble? We're going to do chewing gum, bubble gum. Let's see if anyone can blow a bubble on camera. I mean, it's pretty quick. We've got to be really getting at it. I know, I know. This is a challenge. No luck? Can you try a little harder? I'm a crap. Okay, there's a scientific reason you cannot do this right now. So you cannot blow a bubble until you dissolve some of the sugar in your saliva. So that's why it's tasting sweet. It's tasting sweet because you're pulling the sugar out of the gum. And sugar particles, unlike the other ingredients, they can't stretch and expand to form that bubble. So we have to wait until you chew maybe two or three minutes, and then you should be able to at least start getting a bubble. I saw that right away because I couldn't get her. Then I started swallowing the juices and it took it away. It's very sweet. Exactly. Is it easier once it's chewed for longer periods of time for bubble gum or chewing gum? So bubble gum, it should be easier and make better bubbles. Chewing gum, you should still get those small ones, though. I always like to do that with chewing gum. Is his, like, gum thicker when chewed? So it is different. So, like, if someone asks me, like, hey, Abby, can you formulate a bubble gum for me or a chewing gum? I do a lot of projects like that. So I have a table of what are the different ingredients in between bubble gum and chewing gum. So I guess I don't even know the ingredients in the gum. Yes, right, right, okay. So can you see what the difference is? in my chewing gum right equal yeah no no there's no difference there is a secret secret ingredient so gum companies keep that gum base ingredient okay this is like their special sauce every gum company has their own ingredients that make up that gum base because if anyone copied them they could get the same texture or stretch and so on an ingredient statement the gums might look identical it's sugar gum base but if you dig into what's actually composing the gum base In bubble gum, we need long molecules, a different ingredient, so that it can stretch more without breaking. Where chewing gum, they want ingredients that keep that constant chew. Whereas bubble gum, I would say, has like a dead chew. It's more for blowing bubbles. Yeah. So is that, well, I guess maybe it's personal preference, but what do you find from like athletes? Do they prefer more bubble gum or chewing gum? So I'm not sure for athletes. For me, if I'm like working and I just want to chew, absolutely chewing gum. The texture is way better, long-lasting, where bubblegum, I don't like where it starts to disintegrate. You know, it doesn't have long-lasting flavor and stuff like that. Can I just ask you, what is the ingredient that makes the gum flavor last longer and then that consistency stays softer? Because sometimes the flavor is gone, like juicy fruit or whatever. Absolutely, absolutely. Like an animal stripe, like it's gone in five seconds, where Hubba Bubba. So there's really, long-lasting flavor is a bit of a misconception. how we get long lasting flavor is we use different flavor ingredients and then one is released right away and the other maybe a little later but this all depends how quickly the ingredients want to go into your saliva which is water-based so it's really like some ingredients would stay in the gum base a little longer and others want to get out of there and get into your saliva they prefer water the science i know i never knew that i just knew i had to keep popping like like double bubble yes yes absolutely that's so fascinating but also thank you because now all i want to do is chew Big League Chew again because i'm going back to when i was 10 years old playing baseball and and also the sound that that's made when you're chewing gum you're also a scientist but maybe you can answer this how is it that some people crack snap their gum when chewing and other people don't because my wife and my son if i'm in the car with them it's like crack oh i do all the time but how does that happen i can't do that if i try really i could do it so i thought everyone could do it to be honest are you blowing little bubbles i think it's maybe like the pressure and how forcefully you're blowing but i'm not i'm not certain on that okay well let's talk about the science of uh popcorn and candy glass which is in front of you yes exactly so we have of course baseball i had to bring in Cracker Jack. Now if you look at this coating i would as you know it's kind of hard and brittle to me as a candy scientist i would call this a glass it's in the glassy state okay and this is because it's a very concentrated sugar we put a bunch of sugar in water and then boil off most of the water okay and then if we cool it really fast the molecules are sort of caught off guard and they end up in this disordered state okay and then because there's molasses added to this it kind doesn't look like a glass but if i did the same thing i just made a concentrated sugar syrup and cooled it on this pan and now you can see like this does kind of look like a glass I guess I should put it this way right you could kind of see through it yeah now I colored this pink just for fun and it's watermelon flavored oh there we go and it also cracks like a glass right so like now you can see yeah it is a candy glass you uh it's watermelon flavored it's edible it's just uh you know when we think of glass we think of window glass sure but this is a candy glass it's just how the molecules are arranged interesting Yes. Okay. Okay. It's like Wonka. That could be the glass door. Yes. Yes. That's how you have something that I want. And I think Derek actually has one of these If I'm not mistaken. Like a traditional candy machine. Oh, yeah. I think Derek has a cotton candy machine. Oh, shoot. I don't know. It's supposed to be heated up. You know what? It was never plugged in. We might not get cotton candy today. You know what? It doesn't even reach down there. So that's okay. We can try our best to get it as close as possible but i don't there is an extension cord nope there we there we go we're gonna stick it in there yes all right oh there we go it will take about three minutes i tested it last night okay but it's okay um it does also start from this is what it starts like i don't know if you've seen uh it looks like a bowl of sugar i know it just said yeah it's just like crystalline sugar like this is like your table sugar you have in the kitchen of course a little color and flavor is added and so to make cotton candy it starts as a crystalline solid so how we get it fluffy and airy is the machine how we process it and why and it's spinning so that's what it does it is is it air also or just so what happens you can see under here it's heating up do you see that heating element smell it and so separate it no so what it does is it melts the sugar into a liquid and because it's spinning it has little holes it forces out the melted sugar out and that's what spins the strands okay and also as it's spinning because the strands are are thin they capture a bunch of air and that's why any food you see that's light and fluffy that has air bubbles in it like your marshmallow okay your ice cream so like that's as a food scientist i'm like oh no that's that texture because of the air cells or the air bubbles interesting yes wait because i guess what gets it sticky um so sticky is sugar so this i made this two days ago And I can tell this is not supposed to be this sticky. If you feel it, it's absorbing water from the air. Like I should have sealed this better. I just put like saran wrap over it kind of haphazardly. The problem with candy like this, this is like Jolly Ranchers, love to absorb water. They get sticky. Abby, I mean, seriously, the education you just gave Donovan, myself, and all of our viewers. Mind blown. Yeah, I want to go back to being eight and just because I want to do this again. But thank you so much for joining us today. Guys, we're going to get this thing heated. We're going to see some cotton candy, and you're going to see some more Fox 6 Real Milwaukee after the break. I think it's ready. I think it's ready. It's almost, yeah. No, I know, I know. I can feel it. It's like one minute. You can smell it? Yes, yes. I love it. Thank you, Abby, so much. You're welcome. Watch the World Series on Fox 6, and at the same time, join the fun on the Fox Local app and check out watch parties all over town on your phone or tablet. 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