Calm Chris Posted December 20, 2006 Report Share Posted December 20, 2006 Random find on the inter-web- There's some great answers Funny how I like Maltesers, even though I hate Horlicks How are Maltesers made? John McKenzie, S****horpe, Great Britain I rang up the makers a few years ago (being very bored at work). Apparently, it's a trade secret. Does that help? Richard Cutler, Kingston Upon Thames Maltesers are made in two stages. The inner crunchy part is made by making small pellets of a dough like mixture. This is placed in a low pressure container which forces the bubbles in the mixture to expand, making the pellets larger. The pellets are then coated with chocolate and polished. The details are vague because the company wouldn't give me exact details! Simon Mackie, Birmingham I'm not sure of the exact recipe for the "honeycomb" bit, but I'm reliably informed that it is no coincidence that the Horlicks factory is just up the road from the Mars factory where they make Maltesers. Whatever the ingredients are, once mixed they are made into little pellets. These pellets are then cooked in a vacuum oven which gives them their "honeycomb" texture. Then, they are sent tumbling over lots of chocolate covered rollers to get their coating, chilled and finally bagged and boxed. Anna, Iver, England The same way Brits or Yanks are made. A male and female get together and - presto! - nine months later a little Malteser appears. Norman Ross, Dublin, Ireland As a student I worked at the Horlicks factory in Slough and (since no-one told me to keep it secret) can reliably inform that the stuff inside Maltesers is ground up to make Horlicks. The recipe included malt extract and milk which were cooked in a partial vacuum, firstly to reduce its water content then, to puff it up. We used to munch big chunks of it fresh out of the oven - delicious. Martin Stevenson, Acton, MA, USA Making Maltesers is easy. How do they make "Aero"? Jim Butcher, London I saw them made at the factory once. First the honeycomb dough is made and rolled out in a long sheet. This passes between two rollers which have little hemispheres carved out of them to make the bubbles and compress the dough around them. When the dough is baked the little balls pop up and the compressed bits between them are broken off. The little balls are then coated in chocolate and when that's dry they are rolled along a section of track which is at an angle, probably about 30-40 degrees. Only the maltesers which manage to make it to the end of the track while still rolling on the highest part are packaged, the others are crushed up and used to make more maltesers. This is to weed out the lumpy maltesers; apparantly they don't roll properly and end up at the bottom of the track. But I saw some siamese maltesers get through successfully. I hope I'm not going to go to hell for exposing trade secrets... Nicky, Melbourne Australia You get some malt put in into a ball then cover it in chocolate Ian, Newcastle England I heard they put the inner crunchy bit in a big cement mixer full of chocolate (chocolate mixer?)to ensure an even coating of chocolate on each one. Christine, Glasgow, UK The chocolate coating is the clever part - uniform coating with no evidence of spread caused by resting on a surface while the chocolate is drying. This is done by atomising the chocolate and 'spraying' it onto the honeycomb as the balls wing and roll their way through a vortex (tornado type thing). Each little droplet of chocolate dries almost immediately so you get the even coating. Julian, London Small balls of malt are rolled over a flat surface of melted chocolate. Once the chocolate has hardened a team of polishers use craft knives and very fine sand paper to remove any blobs and make sure the surface of each malteser is very smooth. Pete, Stoke England Hey Guys, I used to make the mix! The mix for the inside is malted milk (yes, Horlicks), skimmed milk powder, and salt. I can't remember the proportions. I once spent an entire shift using full cream milk powder instead of skimmed, and of course the result looked identical. The effect inside the pressure ovens, though, was decidedly different! The little tablets of mix, if left to their own devices, would have grown to the size of footballs! Two malteser ovens were written off, and I was not the most popular person in the factory! Mike Johnson, London UK · Firstly the malt dough (same as horlicks) is baked in a special 'fan bed' oven which keeps the honeycomb centres suspended above the oven bed on a cushion of hot air (this ensures perfectly spherical centres). After 22mins and 30 secs the air is cooled, hardening the centres. The centres are left to cool for a further hour, creating the correct surface for perfect chocolate adhesion. Then the clever bit! A special 'tennis style' ball feeder is used to propel each centre at an approximate velocity of 5.7m/s through 5 banks of fine chocolate spray, each 10cm apart (approx). After the 5th spray is a cold air blast that ensures all the chocolate has solidified. A team of 'expert' catchers (each equipped with left and right handed baseball gloves) then 'pluck' the maltesers from mid air and drop them into the feeder for the packaging machine. PS- I was fired for catching too many with my mouth. Mal Teaser, Cadbury ville Rowntree What about the ice creams - like Mars and Snickers - how do they coat the ice cream with (presumably) molten chocolate without melting the ice cream?! James, Bristol Avon No, no, no! Lies, lies, lies! They are lovingly made by little candy elves! I know this for a fact. I saw them do it in a dream one night. After consuming a full box of Maltesers all by myself. Tracy, Dublin, Ireland I've often wondered how the chocolate coating is applied without leaving a flat area on the Malteser, and can only suggest that the Mars company employs something like a 'shot tower'. The candies would be dropped down the inside of the tower, allowing the chocolate to harden uniformly. A similar method was used to produce perfectly round lead shot for muskets. Simon Harrison, Laramie, USA I would assume that the centres are roughly covered with chocolate by whatever means the rolled down a heated (or not) rotating drum, at an angle, witch becomes cool at the end(?). This differential rotation on 2 axis make it "smooth" (if you look closely, they are not totally smooth anyway). Liam, Blackpool, England All wrong, little pips of sugar and malt are fed through a specially designed microwave which zaps them and causes them to expand to their unenrobed shape. They are then fed through a long trough which gradually, over several hours, adds chocolate to the expanded cores. The trough, as I recall, has some kind of screw to cause a constant rotation of the cores, moving the product continually down the line, and gradually adding the chocolate coating. At the end, they are given a pectin coating, and because of the rotation, self-polish. It's a continuous process, and works very well. As a previous employee there, I can attest that the best Maltesers, unlike Mars bars, are the ones just off the polishing end of trough. Mars bars, and other candies, require crystallization of the sugar over a couple of weeks, and are hard as a rock off the production line. Clay Bailey, Texas, USA No no no no no! What happens is that they make the honeybomb center and then place them all in a vacum type place were there is a huge fan at the bottom - they turn on the fan and the honeycomb balls are all in the air - they then shoot the chocolate from the side and spray the balls - they then dry while in air (thanks to the fan) and the balls are then even, smooth and sphearick! Claire, Derry, Ireland I think they simply make hollow chocolate balls and inject the honeycomb centre. Rob Wilson, Nottingham, UK The maltesers are fired into the air by catapults and shot at by chocolate guns, then they fall into a freezer which hardens them as they fall! I've seen this happen and it's really cool! Chris, Guildford, UK There are about a thousand dwarves in a huge factory in Glasgow. They dip the balls in melted chocolate and suspend them in the air just above their lips by blowing quite hard. This obviously requires the circular breathing technique employed by many wind instrumentalists, so musical dwarves are preferred. The old method involved sending an 'astronaut choclatier' into space with the malt balls and a vat of melted chocolate, so he could suspend them in a zero-gravity environment while the chocolaty goodness solidified. But that was just stupid, there's no way it could have been cost effective . Matthew, Glasgow, Scotland The honeycomb bit is sparkle dust from fairy wings that is rolled into balls and then painted by evil hobgoblins who spin the balls on sticks (a bit like spinning plates) to speed up the drying process and spit on the tiny hole left by the stick to make it invisible. I thought EVERYONE knew that . Susan, Lancaster, UK Clay in Texas has got it right. I was involved in the company that supplied the high power microwave guns that rapidly expand the pellets to be the core of the Malteser. Rob, London, UK I worked for Nestle for a year and because the method is patented, we could look at the process, just not in detail. The Malteser centre is made from malt crumb - basically dried milk with sugar and malt extracts etc(used in general chocolate manufacture). When wet it is exposed to high pressure (and compressed air to provide an aerated center making it light) and microwaved to make it crisp. It is then sugar glazed so they don't absorb the chocolate. The malt balls are then panned i.e. put in a huge inverted dome- shaped vat and vibrated/gently shaken while the chocolate is added to give them a covering. While this is being done the covered Maltesers are fed into the production line where they are air cooled to seal the chocolate. Et voila - Maltesers! James Collins, York, UK The malt spheres are conjured by the act of a mysterious wizard. He then uses his wand to catapult the malt balls through a milk chocolate waterfall...and when they come out on the other side they are completely coated . Andrew Marr , Newton Stewart, UK Should you wish, please add further methods of manufacture Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patently Posted December 20, 2006 Report Share Posted December 20, 2006 Rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamD Posted December 20, 2006 Report Share Posted December 20, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dukeboy749r Posted December 20, 2006 Report Share Posted December 20, 2006 I always thought so... but I still love them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jiminy cricket Posted November 1, 2022 Report Share Posted November 1, 2022 On 12/20/2006 at 7:41 AM, Calm Chris said: Random find on the inter-web- There's some great answers /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/169144-ok.gif Funny how I like Maltesers, even though I hate Horlicks /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smashfreakB.gif How are Maltesers made? John McKenzie, S****horpe, Great Britain I rang up the makers a few years ago (being very bored at work). Apparently, it's a trade secret. Does that help? Richard Cutler, Kingston Upon Thames Maltesers are made in two stages. The inner crunchy part is made by making small pellets of a dough like mixture. This is placed in a low pressure container which forces the bubbles in the mixture to expand, making the pellets larger. The pellets are then coated with chocolate and polished. The details are vague because the company wouldn't give me exact details! Simon Mackie, Birmingham I'm not sure of the exact recipe for the "honeycomb" bit, but I'm reliably informed that it is no coincidence that the Horlicks factory is just up the road from the Mars factory where they make Maltesers. Whatever the ingredients are, once mixed they are made into little pellets. These pellets are then cooked in a vacuum oven which gives them their "honeycomb" texture. Then, they are sent tumbling over lots of chocolate covered rollers to get their coating, chilled and finally bagged and boxed. Anna, Iver, England The same way Brits or Yanks are made. A male and female get together and - presto! - nine months later a little Malteser appears. Norman Ross, Dublin, Ireland As a student I worked at the Horlicks factory in Slough and (since no-one told me to keep it secret) can reliably inform that the stuff inside Maltesers is ground up to make Horlicks. The recipe included malt extract and milk which were cooked in a partial vacuum, firstly to reduce its water content then, to puff it up. We used to munch big chunks of it fresh out of the oven - delicious. Martin Stevenson, Acton, MA, USA Making Maltesers is easy. How do they make "Aero"? Jim Butcher, London I saw them made at the factory once. First the honeycomb dough is made and rolled out in a long sheet. This passes between two rollers which have little hemispheres carved out of them to make the bubbles and compress the dough around them. When the dough is baked the little balls pop up and the compressed bits between them are broken off. The little balls are then coated in chocolate and when that's dry they are rolled along a section of track which is at an angle, probably about 30-40 degrees. Only the maltesers which manage to make it to the end of the track while still rolling on the highest part are packaged, the others are crushed up and used to make more maltesers. This is to weed out the lumpy maltesers; apparantly they don't roll properly and end up at the bottom of the track. But I saw some siamese maltesers get through successfully. I hope I'm not going to go to hell for exposing trade secrets... Nicky, Melbourne Australia You get some malt put in into a ball then cover it in chocolate Ian, Newcastle England I heard they put the inner crunchy bit in a big cement mixer full of chocolate (chocolate mixer?)to ensure an even coating of chocolate on each one. Christine, Glasgow, UK The chocolate coating is the clever part - uniform coating with no evidence of spread caused by resting on a surface while the chocolate is drying. This is done by atomising the chocolate and 'spraying' it onto the honeycomb as the balls wing and roll their way through a vortex (tornado type thing). Each little droplet of chocolate dries almost immediately so you get the even coating. Julian, London Small balls of malt are rolled over a flat surface of melted chocolate. Once the chocolate has hardened a team of polishers use craft knives and very fine sand paper to remove any blobs and make sure the surface of each malteser is very smooth. Pete, Stoke England Hey Guys, I used to make the mix! The mix for the inside is malted milk (yes, Horlicks), skimmed milk powder, and salt. I can't remember the proportions. I once spent an entire shift using full cream milk powder instead of skimmed, and of course the result looked identical. The effect inside the pressure ovens, though, was decidedly different! The little tablets of mix, if left to their own devices, would have grown to the size of footballs! Two malteser ovens were written off, and I was not the most popular person in the factory! Mike Johnson, London UK · Firstly the malt dough (same as horlicks) is baked in a special 'fan bed' oven which keeps the honeycomb centres suspended above the oven bed on a cushion of hot air (this ensures perfectly spherical centres). After 22mins and 30 secs the air is cooled, hardening the centres. The centres are left to cool for a further hour, creating the correct surface for perfect chocolate adhesion. Then the clever bit! A special 'tennis style' ball feeder is used to propel each centre at an approximate velocity of 5.7m/s through 5 banks of fine chocolate spray, each 10cm apart (approx). After the 5th spray is a cold air blast that ensures all the chocolate has solidified. A team of 'expert' catchers (each equipped with left and right handed baseball gloves) then 'pluck' the maltesers from mid air and drop them into the feeder for the packaging machine. PS- I was fired for catching too many with my mouth. Mal Teaser, Cadbury ville Rowntree What about the ice creams - like Mars and Snickers - how do they coat the ice cream with (presumably) molten chocolate without melting the ice cream?! James, Bristol Avon No, no, no! Lies, lies, lies! They are lovingly made by little candy elves! I know this for a fact. I saw them do it in a dream one night. After consuming a full box of Maltesers all by myself. Tracy, Dublin, Ireland I've often wondered how the chocolate coating is applied without leaving a flat area on the Malteser, and can only suggest that the Mars company employs something like a 'shot tower'. The candies would be dropped down the inside of the tower, allowing the chocolate to harden uniformly. A similar method was used to produce perfectly round lead shot for muskets. Simon Harrison, Laramie, USA I would assume that the centres are roughly covered with chocolate by whatever means the rolled down a heated (or not) rotating drum, at an angle, witch becomes cool at the end(?). This differential rotation on 2 axis make it "smooth" (if you look closely, they are not totally smooth anyway). Liam, Blackpool, England All wrong, little pips of sugar and malt are fed through a specially designed microwave which zaps them and causes them to expand to their unenrobed shape. They are then fed through a long trough which gradually, over several hours, adds chocolate to the expanded cores. The trough, as I recall, has some kind of screw to cause a constant rotation of the cores, moving the product continually down the line, and gradually adding the chocolate coating. At the end, they are given a pectin coating, and because of the rotation, self-polish. It's a continuous process, and works very well. As a previous employee there, I can attest that the best Maltesers, unlike Mars bars, are the ones just off the polishing end of trough. Mars bars, and other candies, require crystallization of the sugar over a couple of weeks, and are hard as a rock off the production line. Clay Bailey, Texas, USA No no no no no! What happens is that they make the honeybomb center and then place them all in a vacum type place were there is a huge fan at the bottom - they turn on the fan and the honeycomb balls are all in the air - they then shoot the chocolate from the side and spray the balls - they then dry while in air (thanks to the fan) and the balls are then even, smooth and sphearick! Claire, Derry, Ireland I think they simply make hollow chocolate balls and inject the honeycomb centre. Rob Wilson, Nottingham, UK The maltesers are fired into the air by catapults and shot at by chocolate guns, then they fall into a freezer which hardens them as they fall! I've seen this happen and it's really cool! Chris, Guildford, UK There are about a thousand dwarves in a huge factory in Glasgow. They dip the balls in melted chocolate and suspend them in the air just above their lips by blowing quite hard. This obviously requires the circular breathing technique employed by many wind instrumentalists, so musical dwarves are preferred. The old method involved sending an 'astronaut choclatier' into space with the malt balls and a vat of melted chocolate, so he could suspend them in a zero-gravity environment while the chocolaty goodness solidified. But that was just stupid, there's no way it could have been cost effective /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ROLLEY~14.GIF. Matthew, Glasgow, Scotland The honeycomb bit is sparkle dust from fairy wings that is rolled into balls and then painted by evil hobgoblins who spin the balls on sticks (a bit like spinning plates) to speed up the drying process and spit on the tiny hole left by the stick to make it invisible. I thought EVERYONE knew that /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/UHOH7.GIF. Susan, Lancaster, UK Clay in Texas has got it right. I was involved in the company that supplied the high power microwave guns that rapidly expand the pellets to be the core of the Malteser. Rob, London, UK I worked for Nestle for a year and because the method is patented, we could look at the process, just not in detail. The Malteser centre is made from malt crumb - basically dried milk with sugar and malt extracts etc(used in general chocolate manufacture). When wet it is exposed to high pressure (and compressed air to provide an aerated center making it light) and microwaved to make it crisp. It is then sugar glazed so they don't absorb the chocolate. The malt balls are then panned i.e. put in a huge inverted dome- shaped vat and vibrated/gently shaken while the chocolate is added to give them a covering. While this is being done the covered Maltesers are fed into the production line where they are air cooled to seal the chocolate. Et voila - Maltesers! James Collins, York, UK The malt spheres are conjured by the act of a mysterious wizard. He then uses his wand to catapult the malt balls through a milk chocolate waterfall...and when they come out on the other side they are completely coated /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/lol.gif. Andrew Marr , Newton Stewart, UK You get an empty ball and rub it into a vacuum of cocoa and then the dragon from Mulan (great guy, lovely personality) comes along and melts the cocoa over the ball. Then, get the fine syringe and slowly insert the liquid malt, put them in the freezer to freeze (and get that shiny coating, yum yum). After this is completed, grab your handy sandpaper and smooth the chocolate out. Now you have maltesers! Jiminy Cricket, Brixton, UK Should you wish, please add further methods of manufacture /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/169144-ok.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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