Confectionery

Confectionery

Confectionery, processed food based on a sweetener, which may be sugar or honey, to which are added other ingredients such as flavourings and spices, nuts, fruits, fats and oils, gelatin, emulsifiers, colourings, eggs, milk products, and chocolate or cocoa. Confectionery, usually called sweets in Great Britain, or candy in the United States, can be divided into two kinds according to the preparation involved and based on the fact that sugar, when boiled, goes through different stages from soft to hard in the crystallization process. Typical of soft, or crystalline, sweets—smooth, creamy, and easily chewed—are fondants (the basis of chocolate creams) and fudge; typical hard, noncrystalline sweets are toffees and caramels. Other popular confections include nougats, marshmallows, the various forms of chocolate (bars or moulded pieces, sometimes filled), pastes and marzipan, candy floss (spun sugar, called barbe à papa in France and cotton candy in the United States), popcorn, liquorice, and chewing gum. The term also refers to flour confectionery, such as biscuits and pastries.

Records show that confectionery was used as an offering to the gods of ancient Egypt. Honey was used as the sweetener until the introduction of sugar into medieval Europe. Among the oldest types of confectionery are liquorice and ginger from East Asia and marzipan from Europe. Its production did not begin on a large scale until the early 19th century, when, with the development of special machinery, it became a British speciality. Today, annual world production of confectionery totals many millions of kilograms.