How Blackpool Rock is Made

Rocks sweets are a classic seaside treat that everyone looks forward to, especially when visiting its birthplace of Blackpool. But how is Blackpool rock made? With it being such a staple food for the local area, you may have wondered how they create the intricate designs and text for each stick. This blog will look at the process and explain step by step how traditional sweet makers create this beloved treat.

The Process

There is a basic mixture that is used for every rock sweet and forms the basis of the sweet. The different ingredients are added to a copper bowl and mixed together while being heated. This continues until the ingredients have become a fully formed liquid mixture. The mixture is taken out of the bowl and spread across a large surface. Food colouring is added to different parts of the mixture and cut up to create different coloured mixtures that will later be brought back together. At this point, the mixtures have cooled slightly to form something that is not quite a solid and not quite a liquid. It can be moulded and shaped but all stays together. This is the perfect point to add the mixture onto the pulling machine. Here, flavouring is added and mixed by pulling and folding the mixture over and over.

At this stage, the different coloured mixtures are brought together and moulded into the shape/lettering that you want into the end product. This design is then put into the outer colour casing that will make up the main colours of the sweet. The large, moulded mixture is much larger than the classically sized rock bars so it is put into the batch roller. The rolls the mixture into a more and more narrow space until it has stretched and thinned to the right size. The long, thin mixture can now be cut to size to create rock sticks and is left to cool/harden fully to create the famous ‘rock’ texture. The sweets are now finished and ready to be shared with all of Blackpool's visitors.

Traditional Blackpool Sweet

It is important to highlight why rock sweets are so synonymous with the city of Blackpool. This city grew in popularity as one of the go-to spots for summer holidays, attracting tourists up and down the country and even internationally. It was famous for being an amazing place to visit and with that came the holiday food. Even today you can find burgers, hot dogs and freshly made donuts but none as popular as rock sweets. This is where the original recipe was created and where the first rock sweet was sold, making it a big part of the city's history.

Modern Rock Sweet Suppliers

With its growth in popularity, you can imagine how quickly other places throughout the UK created their own rock sweets to have for themselves. In the modern day, you can find rock sweets in most seaside towns as a sweets treat for visitors. However, there are still sweet makers located in the heart of Blackpool that still stick to the traditional recipe and techniques to create the sweet that the British public fell in love with many years ago. Suppliers such as Promotional Candy Company have been in business for decades and continue today to create the classic sweet. Finding a supplier that sticks with tradition is very important as it shows their dedication to producing a high-quality, traditional product for their customers. It also helps to keep the city connected to its routes, not letting anyone who visits that this is where it all started.

Conclusion

It is important to understand how rock sweets are made as it helps you to understand the dedication put into creating these sweets and why they are so popular. To learn more about the process and the range of rock sweets available today, visit the Promotional Candy Company website.