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The Caramilk Secret
 

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MIND MAGAZINE | If you think that the world’s most protected secrets have to do with military strategies and alien existence… well, you could be right. But among the secrets to which there’s a sensible explanation, one of the best guarded is about something that only few people can resist or live without: chocolate! Most persons will say that they prefer chocolate when they are asked about their favourite food, and taking the first bite in a chocolate bar is, for many, one of the earliest memories of childhood. Everybody has their own preference: whether it’s Kit Kat, Aero, Oh Henry! or the mysterious Caramilk. With this bar comes a very good question: how do they put the caramel inside the Caramilk? People are united by this question, and the answer is about to be revealed.

The Caramilk bar was introduced in North America in the sixties and became an instantaneous success; millions of bars are sold each year, making Caramilk one the most popular candy around. The bar is divided into several compartments made of chocolate, each with a liquid caramel inside. The brand name and the famous secret around this chocolate is the property of Cadbury, the renowned chocolate maker from England. Inside the darkest corners of the Cadbury factory lays the secret to this world-famous mystery. So here it goes:

A lot of people think that the caramel is frozen in a block and then it is put inside the bar to make it fit in the middle without mixing with the chocolate. Although this system would work, and was considered by Cadbury’s industrial engineers, it turned out to be too costly and time consuming to be implemented. The caramel would have to be put inside a freezer for a couple of hours until it goes solid, and then, put inside the mixture. This would mean a huge loss of energy and a couple of hours of process in the factory. Normally the production of a Caramilk is no longer than any other candy, it lasts for a few minutes from the first steps until the packaging is completed.
 

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The real process to make a Caramilk involves a few steps of preparation, and none of them involve secret technologies. The mysterious procedure doesn’t involve any special attention or any kind of high-tech machinery, rather, it involves a bit of knowledge in chemistry, and this is all there is to it, you’ll see.

First of all, some chocolate is poured inside a dome-shaped mould, making the top of the Caramilk bar. After which comes the moment of truth: The caramel is simply added on top of the mould. But how come it doesn’t mix with the chocolate, since they are both liquid? Well, it’s simply because the caramel is solid, not liquid. The caramel is basically sugar, that’s been treated to become thick and brownish. So, caramel is simply sucrose. In its natural state, sucrose is solid, and it is made of two components: glucose and fructose. Both ingredients are normally liquid, but then become solid when they are mixed together.

But, still, the caramel inside the bar is truly liquid, no doubt about this. So, how come the caramel is solid when it is put together in the factory, and then becomes liquid when you eat it? Here’s the great secret about Caramilk: a natural enzyme is added to the caramel. This enzyme, which is found in fruits, is capable of breaking the sucrose into liquid by decomposing it into glucose and fructose. So that’s it! The enzyme is known to take effect after a given period of time, so that the caramel is solid when it is in the factory and then becomes liquid when it finally gets inside your mouth. It’s as simple as that.

There are a lot of mysteries in the world of food production, like, what are the ingredients of Coca-Cola or the Heinz Ketchup? How can you make fried chicken just like KFC? The answers to those questions are hard to find, because after all, they are the chore of multi-million dollar business.

But there is still one mystery, one question that continues to defy the understanding of mankind: What is the secret of the Fudge Caramilk?


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