Freeze Dried Sweets: What They Are, How They're Made and Why They Crunch

Take a chewy sweet. Freeze it solid. Put it in a vacuum and pull the water out.

What comes back doesn't look or eat like the sweet you put in. It's twice the size, light as a wafer, and it shatters when you bite it. Then, a second later, the flavour arrives, louder than it ever was before.

That's freeze dried candy: the crunch that packs a punch. If you've seen it all over your feed and wondered whether it's worth the fuss, the answer is yes. Here's how it works, what it tastes like and where to start. There are more than 30 in our Freeze Dried range.

How are freeze dried sweets made?

It's the same process used to make instant coffee and astronaut food, pointed at something far more fun.

1. Freeze. The sweets are chilled until the water inside them turns to ice.
2. Vacuum. The air pressure is dropped so low that the ice skips being water altogether and turns straight to vapour.
3. Puff. As the moisture leaves, the sweet swells up and sets into a crisp, airy shell.

It's the same sweet with the water taken out, and that one change transforms how it eats.

So what do they taste like?

• The crunch comes first. A clean snap, then it melts.
• The flavour is bigger. With the water gone, everything that's left tastes more of itself. Sour gets sharper. Fruit gets fruitier.
• The chew disappears. If you love the flavour of a chew but not the workout, this is your sweet.

Five ways in

• The all rounder: 12 Rounds of Crunch. Twelve freeze dried sweets in one bag. Puffed up, light as air, and a crunch you can hear from the next room. Start here.
• The fruity one: Rumble in the Fruit Bowl. Twelve fruity sweets in every colour.
• The sour one: Sucker Punch. They crunch first and catch you a second later. For more like it, see our guide to fizzy and sour sweets.
• The retro one: The Comeback. Twelve chews from your childhood, back for another round with a brand new texture.
• The vegan one: The Green Corner. Eleven freeze dried sweets made with vegan ingredients.

The singles to try

• Rainbow Fruit Puffs. Little fruit sweets that burst open into airy puffs. All the flavour, none of the chew.
• Raspberry and Milk Crunch Bars. The classic chew bar, turned into something you can snap.
• Apple Cloud Crunch. Sour apple foam that dissolves the moment it lands.
• Nuclear Apple Crunch. Extreme sour green apple. If you thought nothing was too sour, this is your test.
• Deep Sea Crunches. Blue raspberry sharks, swollen up light and crunchy.

How to keep the crunch

Freeze dried sweets have one weakness: they want their water back. Leave a pouch open and they'll pull moisture out of the air and turn soft and sticky.

• Reseal the pouch the moment you've taken a handful.
• Keep it somewhere cool and dry. Not the fridge, which is damp.
• Eat them fairly soon after opening. This has never been a problem for anyone.

Your questions, answered

Are freeze dried sweets healthier?

No. Only the water has gone, so the sugar is all still there. They're a treat like any other.

Why do they cost more than ordinary sweets?

Time and air. Freeze drying takes hours for every batch, and the sweets puff up so much that a pouch of them weighs far less than the same pouch of ordinary sweets. You're paying for the process, not the weight.

Are they suitable for vegans?

Some are. Look for our Vegan Freeze Dried range, and check each product page for ingredients and allergens.

Are they suitable for small children?

Like many of our sweets, they aren't suitable for children under three. Each product page has the full warnings.

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