This is How Peeps Marshmallow Candy is Made

Billions of marshmallow chicks roll off a single production line in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the fact that each one once took 27 hours to make by hand makes the modern process all the more remarkable. An engineer in the early 1950s changed everything with a machine that collapsed that timeline dramatically, and today a finished batch of Peeps marshmallow candy takes just six minutes from start to shelf.

It begins in large kettles where sugar and corn syrup dissolve into a clear liquid before pre-bloomed gelatin is added and the mixture starts to bubble. High speed whisks drive millions of air bubbles into the batch, expanding it to twice its original volume and creating the light, bouncy texture held together by a gelatin mesh. The warm fluff, kept at around 60 degrees Celsius to stay fluid, moves to a depositor machine where nozzles sweep back and forth across a conveyor belt, laying down five chick shapes per row at a rate of about 390 per minute. Wings were dropped from the design years ago to keep production moving without interruption.

Colored sugar crystals shower down over the sticky shapes next, with jets of compressed air clearing any excess and leaving a thin, sparkly coat behind. Yellow runs on the main line, with separate stations for pink, blue, lavender, and orange, each thoroughly cleaned between color changes.

A cooling tunnel firms the chicks up enough to hold their shape while keeping them soft to the touch, and a stamping station follows, pressing two dots of edible carnauba wax onto each head in a single pass so every Peep ends up looking in the same direction. From there the rows separate, fall into plastic trays, and get packed up by machine or by hand before heading out the door and onto shelves, where they tend not to last long.
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