How corn sticks are made. Corn sticks - a favorite delicacy from childhood

Corn sticks are a simple, inexpensive and tasty delicacy that is loved not only by children, but also by adults. What are the benefits and harms of corn sticks, what are they made of, and how to cook them at home?

How to make corn sticks

Production is quite simple - this is evidenced even by the low cost of the product. All you need is special equipment and ingredients: corn grits, table salt, powdered sugar and refined vegetable oil. Manufacturing includes the following sequence:

This is where the process ends - the product is completely ready.

Calorie content and composition

A typical treat consists of just four ingredients: crushed corn grits, butter, salt and powdered sugar. At the same time, the sticks have a high calorie content - 325 calories per 100 g of product.

But their nutritional benefits are small. Carbohydrates occupy the main share - 75 g, proteins are in second place - 8.3 g, and the least fat in the product is 1.2 g.

Corn grits themselves are a valuable product, but the sticks made from them have a poor vitamin and mineral composition. During heat treatment, most of the useful elements are destroyed. Only a few of them are worth taking into account, namely:

• vitamin B2;
• sodium;
• magnesium;
• manganese;
• copper.

The total proportion of other elements, even if they are stated in the composition, is too small.

Important! In stores you can find not only the classic delicacy, but also sticks with additives such as cocoa, cheese, and bacon. Therefore, calorie content and exact composition may vary.

The benefits of corn sticks

The product cannot be called a meaningless delicacy, and although it contains few vitamins, it is still useful. The benefits are as follows:

• 100 g of delicacy contains half the daily requirement of vitamin B2, and this is beneficial for hair and skin, the nervous system, immunity, vision and thyroid gland.
• Sticks are the richest source of simple carbohydrates, which not only replenish physical strength, but elevate mood and vigor.
• Due to their calorie content, sticks are very useful in situations where you need to quickly satisfy your hunger.

At what age can you give corn sticks to children?

Children have a special love for corn sticks, as for any delicacy. But are there any age restrictions here?

Doctors and nutritionists do not recommend adding corn sticks to a child’s diet until he is 1.5 to 2 years old. Since the composition contains only flour, there will be no benefit from them, but an upset stomach may occur in the baby.

Older children and teenagers are allowed corn sticks, but little by little, so as not to spoil a healthy appetite.

Advice! Before giving a treat to children, it is worth looking at the composition, and the less dyes, flavors and flavor enhancers it contains, the better.

Use during pregnancy and breastfeeding

Women have to give up many delicious foods during pregnancy and later while breastfeeding. Corn sticks are banned for the following reasons:

• Simple carbohydrates, which the product is rich in, cause bloating, belching and constipation.
• Sticks are high in calories and contribute to weight gain. During pregnancy, extra pounds may not be noticeable, but after childbirth their presence will become obvious.
• Corn flour can cause allergies. Even if the delicacy is perfectly absorbed by the mother’s body, its intolerance cannot be ruled out in the fetus, and then in the newborn baby.

Ideally, you should remove the product from your diet at the very beginning of pregnancy - right up to the end of the feeding period.

Is it possible to eat corn sticks on a diet?

The dessert product seems very airy, but this impression is deceptive. Since its calorie content is very high, combining it with a diet makes no sense.

If desired, you can replace one of your diet dishes with corn sticks without reducing your daily calorie intake. But in this case, the benefit to the body will be minimal, so it is better to opt for more valuable products.

Contraindications and harm

Despite the fact that corn sticks have benefits, they also have harmful properties. Namely:

• provoke rapid weight gain;
• digest slowly and cause intestinal problems;
• significantly increase blood glucose levels, which can lead to diabetes.

In some cases, the product is contraindicated. It should not be used:

• if you are allergic to corn flour;
• after surgery to remove the gallbladder;
• for diabetes and obesity;
• for gastritis, pancreatitis and gastric ulcers in acute stages.

Attention! With mild chronic gastrointestinal diseases, you can treat yourself to a treat, but in minimal quantities and with the permission of your doctor.

Homemade corn sticks recipe

Sweet corn sticks can be made at home. You will need the following ingredients:

• corn flour - half a glass;
• powdered sugar;
• milk - 4.5 tablespoons;
• 2 raw eggs;
• butter - 50 g.

Bring milk and butter to a boil in a saucepan, add flour and stir. When the mass becomes homogeneous, remove the saucepan from the heat, allow the mixture to cool slightly, and then add eggs to it and mix thoroughly again.

The resulting dough is packaged in a pastry bag and squeezed onto a heated baking sheet, forming blanks. After this, the baking sheet is placed in a well-heated oven and the dough is baked until completely cooked. The sticks are sprinkled with powdered sugar last.

Conclusion

For healthy people, the benefits and harms of corn sticks depend on how they are consumed. Although the treat does not have any particular value for the body, sometimes it helps to quickly suppress the feeling of hunger and replenish energy. But it is better to treat it without fanaticism - it is only a delicious dessert, and not a complete food.

Did you find this article useful?

Many people clearly associate certain sweets with childhood. This includes ice cream, lemonade and, of course, corn sticks. How this airy delicacy is made at the factory and whether it is possible to make sticks at home, you will find out in this article.

What are corn sticks made from?

Raw materials for the production of corn sticks are immediately supplied to the plant in large quantities. It is brought to the enterprise literally in tons. The raw materials are made from durum corn, powdered sugar, salt and refined deodorized vegetable oil. These are all the ingredients required to make corn sticks, familiar to everyone since childhood.

The composition or with a different flavor is similar, but instead of powdered sugar, simply salt or an appropriate flavoring is added, such as bacon, cheese, etc.

Equipment for making corn sticks

The production line for the production of corn sticks includes several types of equipment: a mixer for preparing cereals, a mill for producing powdered sugar, an extruder, a coating complex, a powdered sugar dispenser and a device that packages corn sticks. How products are made at the factory and at home and in what volume depends on the power of the extruder. By the way, the same equipment is used in the production of other breakfast cereals.

The device for making sticks comes in low, medium and high power. It is suitable for small, medium businesses and large factories respectively. In the first case, the productivity will be 30 kg of products per hour, in the second - 100 kg per hour, in the third - 250 kg per hour.

Corn sticks: how they are made at the factory

Thus, the cost of equipment depends on the size of the enterprise. How are corn sticks made at the factory?

The entire technological process takes no more than 10 minutes. During an 8-hour production shift, about three tons of sweet treats are produced. The production process itself consists of several stages:

1. First, corn grits are fed to an extruder, the temperature inside of which ranges from 40 to 150 degrees.
2. Under the influence of high temperature and pressure, the raw material acquires the consistency of dough.
3. The plastic mass falls onto a special matrix with holes, when passing through which the dough sharply increases in size, as if exploding and acquiring the structure of a corn stick. This happens due to a sudden change in pressure. The shape and size of the holes on the matrix determine what the corn sticks will be: round, square, star-shaped, etc.

The sticks that come out of the extruder remain too wet, so they do not have their own taste and do not yet crunch on the teeth. To do this, they need to be glazed and dried in a special drum.

How to make corn sticks with flavoring additives

At the next stage, after the products leave the extruder, they are dried in a special drum. Next, the sticks enter the coating complex - this is a device that resembles a long drum, with the help of which powdered flavoring additives are applied to the products. At the same time, vegetable oil is supplied through the sprayer. It is heated inside the drum and sprayed evenly in a small amount onto the corn sticks. How are they glazed? Read on.

After the sticks are saturated with oil, they go into the next compartment of the drum. Here they are sprinkled with powdered sugar on all sides. When it comes into contact with warm vegetable oil, it melts, forming a sweet glaze on top of the product. At the next stage, ready-made sticks come out of the drum. Then they are packaged by special equipment in automatic mode. Finished sticks are packaged and sent to the warehouse, and then directly to the wholesale buyer.

How to make corn sticks at home

You won’t be able to make corn sticks at home without special equipment. Products acquire an air structure only when passing through an extruder, which provides the necessary sharp pressure drop. Neither a traditional screw meat grinder, nor especially in this case, can replace professional equipment.

How to make corn sticks at home? Very quickly if equipment and raw materials are available. First of all, for this you will need a special apparatus for making corn sticks UKP-M. The productivity of the device is 15 kg of products per hour.

To prepare the sticks, corn grits are first poured into a special funnel on the body, passed through a humidification system and subjected to thermoplastic processing. The entire process occurs almost instantly in a continuous mode. Then the mass is pressed at a certain speed through a special matrix with cutting, which gives the required shape to the finished product. The simplest corn sticks are ready! Now they need to be coated with glaze or sprinkled with powdered sugar, and they can be served.

In addition to corn sticks, the UKP-M device is used for the production of products from wheat, pearl barley, rice in the shape of stars, tubes, etc.

Corn sticks are familiar to people of all ages. Everyone, without exception, knows the amazing taste of this crispy treat. It can confidently be put on a par with such delicacies as ice cream or “cock lollipops”.

A package of puffed food can be given to children at school, taken with you to work, on a picnic or on a trip, because it is relatively inexpensive and perfectly satisfies hunger. This is a very healthy product, but do not forget that it is also very high in calories, so you should not abuse your favorite food.

Many people are interested in how to cook corn sticks at home, and whether it is even possible to do it yourself. The technological process for making this popular dish is quite complex, so it is almost impossible to prepare it at home. Only special equipment that cannot be found in a regular kitchen can help with this. But there is another recipe for corn sticks that can be used to make this dish similar to the real thing. Let's look at two cooking options step by step and with photos.

We make corn sticks using specialized equipment

You will need equipment such as a household kitchen extruder and a screw conditioner. During cooking, humidity and temperature indicators should be observed, as well as the necessary atmospheric conditions should be created. Only then will you get the right and high-quality product. Using a special device - UKP-M, which costs about 2000 rubles, you can also quickly prepare your favorite dessert.

The preparation scheme is as follows (amount of ingredients “by eye”):

1. Grind the corn grits in a coffee grinder to even grains. Their size directly affects the foaming of the mass from which the delicacy is formed. Poor grinding will lead to lumps and burning;
2. Place the ground grains into the auger conditioner. There it needs to be mixed with warm, salted water for about four minutes;
3. Set the speed to constant and wait 3 hours for the mixture to mix until completely broken up. In this case, the humidity percentage in the device must be constantly maintained at 25%;
4. The moistened prepared cereal must be placed in an extrusion apparatus, where it undergoes a heating process of up to 200 degrees and foams, acquiring a plastic, homogeneous structure;
5. Next, the device uses pressure to push the mass into a special drying chamber, evenly cutting the “dough” with a mechanical knife at regular intervals. In this chamber, corn blanks are dried until their moisture content decreases to 5%. This makes them crispy. And it is at this stage that the workpieces acquire their usual airy appearance and porous shape;
6. The final stage is glazing. Here, the workpieces are first coated with filtered vegetable oil by spraying it onto the surface of the resulting products. After this, they are placed in a mixing drum along with the ground ingredients for glazing (powdered sugar, crushed salt, chocolate chips or various seasonings);
7. With this our delicacy is ready. It will be as tasty as the product produced in the factory.

Simplified version of corn sticks

There is another way to make homemade corn sticks. It is much simpler and faster than the previous one. Finished products will differ significantly from store-bought ones, but will also delight you with their taste.

You will need:

• 2 eggs;
• Butter – 50 g;
• Corn flour – 100 g;
• Milk – 70 ml.

Step-by-step cooking instructions:

1. Stir the butter and milk in a saucepan, place on low heat and bring to a boil, then slowly add the corn flour and stir continuously to avoid the appearance of lumps. Bring the mass until smooth;
2. Remove the resulting mixture from the heat and cool, then add the eggs and beat all the ingredients thoroughly;
3. We put the mixture into a cooking bag, then squeeze small finger-thick strips out of it onto a baking sheet;
4. We bake the preparations in a well-heated oven;
5. If desired, sprinkle the top of the finished dish with powdered sugar and place it on a plate.

Raffaello made from corn sticks

Your favorite delicacy can be consumed separately or included in many dishes. Therefore, finally - a simple sweet dessert made from corn sticks.

You will need:

• A jar of condensed milk;
• Corn “sticks” – 150 g;
• Coconut flakes - to taste;
• Nuts (any) – 100 g.

Cooking step by step:

1. Grind the corn sticks in a blender or pass through a meat grinder to obtain “flour”;
2. Place condensed milk in it and stir thoroughly until smooth;
3. Form small balls from the “dough”, place a nut on them and press them in, then roll the pieces again, giving them a round shape. Instead of nuts, you can use dried apricots or prunes;
4. Pour coconut flakes into a deep bowl and roll each ball evenly in it, then place in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. After this, the delicacy is ready to serve.

Video: How to make corn sticks at home

Dried foam made from cornmeal, which is essentially corn sticks, is loved by children of all ages. Recently, their range on grocery store shelves has expanded significantly. You can find not only a sweet product, but also salty sticks with different flavors, as well as in chocolate or various glazes.

There is a special machine for the production of corn sticks - an extruder, a unit similar to a large meat grinder. Corn grits with other components are loaded into its working chamber, where under the influence of high temperatures and pressure the mixture begins to melt, changing its structure.

The fluid-viscous mass is pressed by a screw through the dies (outlet holes). This is where the fun begins: the temperature and pressure of the feedstock drop sharply, the water evaporates almost instantly, and porous and airy sticks appear.

Calorie content and composition

The composition of many children's favorite delicacy does not contain many components. To make corn sticks, you only need corn grits (in industrial production, grits are used, not flour), refined and deodorized vegetable oil, finely ground table salt and powdered sugar for coating (sometimes it is mixed with milk powder or cocoa).

Of course, modern manufacturers often additionally use dyes, flavor enhancers, preservatives and stabilizers. Such ingredients make the taste more intense, but the benefits of consuming such a product are significantly reduced.

The average calorie content of sweet puffed corn sticks is 518 kcal/100 g. The ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, respectively, is 6/28/58.

Benefits and harm to the body

The benefits and harms of corn sticks are simultaneously due to their high carbohydrate content. If corn porridge is rich in “slow” carbohydrates, which are more difficult to digest by the body, then under the influence of heat and mechanical processing the carbohydrates in corn sticks become “fast”. Therefore, after consuming this product, the level of glucose in the blood quickly increases, and the body is charged with energy.

But this positive aspect also has a downside. The same heat treatment almost completely destroys the vitamins A and E contained in the cereal. However, you can replenish the supply of vitamins while eating sticks by simply pouring juice over them. Such a breakfast will charge you not only with energy, but also with vitamins.

But it is worth remembering that if the body does not use up “fast” carbohydrates in the near future, then they will just as quickly settle as extra centimeters and an orange peel on the waist and hips. This is another possible harm to the body.

Who should limit consumption?

There are a number of categories of people who should limit their consumption of corn sticks or avoid them altogether:

1. Children under one year old. Older children can be given a sweet treat covered in powdered sugar as a dessert, but sticks with artificial flavors should be avoided altogether.
2. Nursing mothers, since babies may experience allergic reactions or flatulence.
3. People with diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases, obesity, especially during exacerbation.

How to cook at home?

How corn sticks are made on an industrial scale is already known, and now it’s time to find out whether this dessert can be repeated at home and how to do it.

Not a single housewife has an extruder in her kitchen to replicate the technology, so you won’t be able to prepare an identical product at home, but you can prepare a sweet, airy dessert with a similar taste that is as close as possible to the desired result.

For corn sticks at home you need to take:

• 220 g powdered sugar;
• 4 egg whites;
• 130 g corn flour.

The process of making homemade sticks:

1. Sift the corn flour through a fine sieve and mix with half the total amount of powdered sugar.
2. Beat the egg whites to stable, strong peaks along with the remaining powdered sugar.
3. Then combine the meringue and the flour-powder mixture. At first the dough will be thick, but after kneading with a spatula it will become smooth and fluid.
4. Transfer the dough into a pastry bag and place sticks on a baking sheet covered with parchment or a silicone mat and dry them for 15 minutes in the oven at 150 degrees.

Recipes for desserts made from corn sticks

Ant Hill Cake

To make a tasty treat - a cake made from corn sticks and toffees, it is enough to have a quarter of an hour and the following ingredients:

• 200 g sweet corn sticks;
• 500 g of Toffee candies;
• 180 g butter.

How to make a cake without baking:

1. To ensure that there are no voids in the ant hill, use a knife to chop the corn sticks a little, but not too finely.
2. Place the butterscotch and butter on low heat and stir constantly until the mixture is smooth and uniform in consistency.
3. Pour the sticks into the butter and toffee cream, mix and quickly (since the mass sets quickly) place on a serving dish and form a mound. Press it slightly with your hands to avoid the formation of air pockets. Place the formed cake in the cold for half an hour.

Chocolate roll with cookies

For this delicious dessert with a bright coffee and chocolate aroma you need to take:

• 300 g shortbread cookies (for example, “Baked milk”);
• 100 g corn sticks;
• 150 g butter;
• 100 g sugar;
• 80 ml heavy cream (from 33%);
• 100 g cocoa powder;
• 80 g coconut flakes;
• 30 ml liqueur with coffee-creamy flavor (for example, Baileys or Sheridan`s).

Cooking method:

1. Beat the cookies into crumbs, cut the sticks or break them into small pieces. Mix these products with coconut flakes.
2. In a separate container, mix cream, sugar and cocoa. Heat this mixture until all granulated sugar crystals dissolve. Then add the diced butter and liqueur and mix the mixture thoroughly.
3. Pour the mixture of cookies, sticks and shavings into the resulting cream and mix. Form a roll from this mass, which must be cooled until set for about an hour before serving.

Cake with condensed milk

To prepare a delicious striped dessert from corn sticks and condensed milk you will need the following ingredients:

• 200 g corn sticks;
• 370 g boiled condensed milk;
• 50-60 g butter;
• 100 g peanuts;
• 90 g powdered sugar;
• 90 g cocoa drink "Nesquik".

Recipe step by step:

1. Chop the nuts a little with a knife and fry in a dry frying pan, but do not fry. You just need to enhance their aroma.
2. Cut the corn sticks into half-centimeter thick rounds and mix with melted butter, boiled condensed milk and peanuts. Press the resulting mass tightly into a tall rectangular cake pan, lined with food foil or film and greased with vegetable oil.
3. Refrigerate the sweet food for two to three hours. Once set, remove from pan to a serving platter and top with stripes of Nesquik and powdered sugar. By the way, the drawing can be absolutely anything.

Cake recipe with sticks, coconut and liqueur

Creating this unusual sweet will take a little longer than working with previous recipes, but even a schoolchild can still handle it.

This version of the corn stick dish includes the following ingredients:

• 140 g corn sticks;
• 370 g boiled condensed milk;
• 155 g butter;
• 120 g coconut flakes;
• 100 g dark chocolate;
• 20 ml liqueur.

Recipe step by step:

1. Use a blender to crush the puffed cornmeal sticks into fine crumbs.
2. To make the cream, beat the boiled condensed milk to a creamy consistency with butter and liqueur. Place part of the cream (approximately 1/3) in a separate bowl, and mix the rest with corn stick crumbs.
3. Form the resulting mass into balls no larger than a walnut. Roll each of them in coconut flakes.
4. From the balls, assemble a structure similar to a slide, pressing the balls tightly against each other and generously smearing each row with the remaining cream.
5. Pour melted chocolate on top of the formed cake. Before serving, the dessert should be kept in the cold for at least one to two hours.

What is more in corn sticks (benefit or harm), everyone must decide for themselves, soberly assessing the characteristics and condition of their body. But if you carefully choose this delicacy, excluding products with dangerous content, then every healthy person can sometimes treat himself to sweet corn sticks or a piece of dessert made from them.

Corn sticks(see photo) is one of children’s favorite sweet treats. The finished product is presented in the form of shaped dried foam, which is made from corn grits.

The very first to come up with this product were the American brothers John and Will Keith Kellogg, who founded a medical sanatorium in the USA. They decided to prepare dishes for the patients using maize flour. But since there was a lot of dough left, and it was a pity to throw it away, the rest of the dough was passed through special rollers. Thus, flakes appeared, which were then fried in sunflower oil and presented as a dessert for tea.

The familiar corn sticks in their current form first appeared in 1963 at the Dnepropetrovsk plant for the production of food concentrates, where the production of the product took place according to the specified technology and on the one developed by V.Ya. Krikunov. equipment.

Today there are quite a lot of varieties of such corn products. The product can be not only sweet, but also salty, glazed, creamy, chocolate, with the taste of bacon, cheese, cinnamon, vanillin, lemon.. In addition, some manufacturers make the sticks multi-colored and also make the product gluten-free and sugar-free.

Compound

The main composition of real corn sticks includes the following products:

• deodorized sunflower oil;
• corn grits;
• salt;
• powdered sugar.

The calorie content of this product is quite high, so you should not abuse it so as not to harm your health.

How are corn sticks made at the factory?

The process of making corn sticks at the plant takes no more than ten minutes, so the company’s workers can make more than three tons of this product per shift. The production of natural sticks is as follows:

1. Corn grits are placed in an extruder (special equipment for kneading dough into sticks). There, under the influence of a temperature of one hundred and fifty degrees and strong pressure, it turns into a homogeneous dough.
2. Then the corn mass passes through a special matrix with holes of different shapes, which gives the sticks the desired appearance.
3. After the extrusion stage, the sticks are still wet and should therefore be further glazed and tumble dried.
4. As soon as the sticks fall into a special drum, they will begin to dry and various flavoring additives will be sprayed on top of them, as well as warm sunflower oil.
5. Next, the oil-soaked sticks are sent to another compartment of the drum, where they are completely immersed in powdered sugar. Due to the fact that there is warm oil on the sticks, the powder will begin to melt and turn into a sweet glaze.

The corn sticks are ready and ready to pack.

Benefits and harms

Corn sticks are not particularly beneficial because they contain a large amount of carbohydrates. Therefore, many experts recommend eating as many sticks a day as can fit in one hand, and only as a dessert for tea after the main meal, otherwise the product may cause constipation.

Many doctors do not recommend giving corn sticks to children under three years of age, since the young body cannot yet cope with large amounts of carbohydrates, and also in order not to provoke the development of an allergy to the sticks.

In addition, during pregnancy and breastfeeding you should avoid eating chopsticks. Since the product has a high calorie content, it can cause unwanted weight gain in a pregnant woman. A nursing mother should not eat them either, so that the baby does not have bloating, constipation, or an allergy to the new product.

Since the corn product contains many calories, it should not be eaten during a diet. Also, people who have had their gallbladder removed should not use chopsticks.

What can you cook?

You can make many different sweet desserts for tea with corn sticks. The sticks are mainly used for making cakes with condensed milk, toffee, honey, pastries, and rolls.

The product is also great for making cookies, rafaello, chips, and sweet sausages.

As an independent dish, corn sticks can be eaten for breakfast by pouring milk over them. In addition, the product can be eaten simply, washed down with tea or milk.

How to do it at home?

Making corn sticks at home is quite simple, since the process does not require special equipment (an extruder). Therefore, the housewife will not have much difficulty making natural homemade corn sticks.

To prepare sticks at home, you need to pour about seventy milliliters of homemade milk into a saucepan and add about fifty grams of butter. Boil the liquid, add half a glass of corn flour and stir continuously so that there are no lumps. The mass should be of uniform consistency. Then you should let the milk-corn mixture cool, and then beat in two eggs and mix thoroughly.

Place the dough in a special pastry bag and squeeze out into small “sausages” onto a warm baking sheet. Place the sticks in the oven and bake until done. Sprinkle the finished hot product with powder and you can serve it.

Below is a video on how to make corn sticks.