Sugar panning, or simply panning, is a method for adding a sugar-based shell to confectionery or nuts. Popular products that employ this process in their manufacture include dragées, gobstoppers, konpeitō and jelly beans.
Jelly beans use soft panning while the others are examples of hard panning. The process was initially invented in 17th-century France to make jordan almonds.
Sugar panning is performed with a spherical or oval pan, called a dragée pan, mounted on an angled spinning post. The pan is open to the air to allow ingredients to be added and the syrup to dry. The candy centers are put in the dragée pan, and syrup is added. When the pan is rotated, the syrup is evenly distributed over the centers, drying as a layer. Soft panned layers can be quite thick and do not preserve the shape of the center very well. Hard-panned layers take longer to dry and can be as thin as 10-14μm.
Many types of center may be used, but they must be strong enough to not break during the tumbling. Nuts should be dried and sealed, such as with gum arabic and flour, to prevent oils from escaping and discoloring the candy shell. Other centers may be precoated for sealing or to improve the syrup sticking to the center. Chewing gum is difficult to pan without precoating.