Reading a lollipop

People who come into the shop tend to ask the same two questions: what does this one taste like, and how do you get the stripes in there. The answers are related. Most of what looks decorative in a lollipop is a byproduct of how the sugar was worked, which means you can read a piece of candy the way you read a cake's crumb.

Colour: the first and least reliable clue

Colour tells you almost nothing about flavour. A deep purple candy might be black currant, grape, violet or nothing at all. Two shops can use identical colours for completely different flavours, and the only honest guide is a label or a shop assistant.

What colour does tell you is something about the maker's intent. Deliberate colour work — a gradient that fades rather than stops, two related colours next to each other, a stripe that survives being pulled thin — costs time. A single flat colour is quicker and cheaper to make, which is not a criticism, just a fact worth knowing when you compare prices.

Layers: the honest clue

Look at the candy from the side, where the rope was cut. You should see a stack of thin layers, like the pages of a book. Those layers are the folds. Fewer, thicker layers usually mean a shorter pull and a slightly harder, glassier bite. Many very fine layers mean the sugar was worked longer and cooled more gently, and the candy will usually feel softer on the tooth.

Concentric lines on the face of a lollipop are the same information seen from another angle. They are also why the pattern in a hand-pulled candy never quite repeats: each fold is a hand movement, not a print.

Bubbles: the most misread clue

Fine, evenly scattered bubbles are normal in pulled candy and part of its character. A single large bubble is a small flaw — usually a sign that the sugar was folded when it was slightly too cool — but it does not affect the taste.

What bubbles do affect is the bite. A big bubble can make a lollipop shatter unevenly, which is a nuisance if you are eating it in a car. If you are buying for a party, pick the ones without the big bubbles; the small ones make no difference at all.

Edges: where quality shows

• Clean and slightly irregular means cut by hand with a knife or scissors while warm. Normal for small shops.
• Perfectly uniform means a mould or a die. Also normal, and often more expensive to tool than to make by hand.
• Cloudy or whitish at the edge usually means the candy absorbed moisture after it was made, or was bagged while still warm. It is a storage problem rather than a recipe problem, and the candy is still perfectly good to eat.
• Sticky to the touch means it has taken on water. Eat it soon; it will not improve.

The stick

A small thing that tells you a lot. Paper sticks go soft in a humid room. Birch sticks are more expensive and hold up better; they also tend to be slightly thicker, which is why a well-made lollipop sits in the hand without wobbling. If the stick is loose in the candy, the candy was probably too cool when it was set, and it will come out in the middle of eating it.

Everything visible on the outside of a lollipop is a decision someone made. None of it tells you whether you will like the flavour — only the first bite does that.

If you want to test yourself, buy two lollipops from two shops, look at them side by side in daylight, and write down what you notice before you taste either. It is a surprisingly good exercise, and it makes the second half of our tasting plan much more interesting.