Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories: bakers' confections and sugar confections. The occupation of confectioner encompasses the categories of cooking performed by both the French patissier and the confiseur.
Candy, alternatively called sweets or lollies, is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, also called sugar confectionery, encompasses any sweet confection, including chocolate, chewing gum, and sugar candy. Vegetables, fruit, or nuts which have been glazed and coated with sugar are said to be candied.
Wagashi is a traditional Japanese confection that is often served with green tea, especially the type made of mochi, anko, and fruit. Wagashi is typically made from plant-based ingredients with an emphasis on seasonality, and generally making use of cooking methods that pre-date Western influence in Japan.
Twizzlers are a licorice-type candy manufactured by Y&S Candies, Inc., of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a division of The Hershey Company. Twizzlers were first produced in 1929 by Young and Smylie, as the company was then called. The licorice company was founded in 1845, making it one of the oldest confectionery firms in the United States. Twizzlers ingredients consist of corn syrup, wheat flour, sugar, cornstarch, and smaller amounts of palm oil, salt, artificial flavor, glycerin, citric acid, potassium sorbate, Red 40, and soy lecithin. Despite only the black Twizzlers containing extracts of the licorice plant, Twizzlers products are collectively referred to as licorice-type candy. Seventy percent of the annual production of Twizzlers are strawberry, the most popular Twizzlers flavor.
Parma Violets are a British violet-flavoured tablet confectionery manufactured by the Derbyshire company Swizzels Matlow, named after the Parma violet variety of the flower. The sweets are hard, biconcave disc-shaped sweets, similar to the Fizzers product from the same company but without their fizziness. Swizzels Matlow have also released a line of Giant Parma Violets.
Harry Burnett Reese was an American inventor and businessman known for creating the number one-selling candy brand in the United States; Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and founding the H. B. Reese Candy Company. In 2009, he was posthumously inducted into the Candy Hall of Fame.
Mackintosh's Toffee is a sweet created by Mackintosh Company.
Swizzels Matlow Limited, branded as Swizzels, is a confectionery manufacturer based in New Mills, Derbyshire, near Stockport in the United Kingdom. The company had revenues of £47 million in 2010/11. It employs around 600 people. Swizzels Matlow exports 20 per cent of its sweets to more than 20 countries, mostly in Europe. Their highest selling brands are Love Hearts, Parma Violets and Drumstick lollies. Its biggest sales period is Halloween.
Sanders Chocolates is an American brand of chocolates that was founded by Fred Sanders on June 17, 1875. According to company history, by the mid-20th century, the company operated 57 retail stores in the Great Lakes region, featuring counter service offering candy, fudge toppings, baked goods, light lunches and an assortment of desserts. Sanders is known for its bumpy cake and hot fudge cream puffs.
Oatfield was a chocolate and confectionery manufacturer located in Letterkenny, County Donegal, Ireland. The company was the oldest confectionery manufacturer in Ireland.
Pineapple lumps or pineapple chunks are a chocolate-covered confection with a soft, chewy pineapple-flavoured middle from New Zealand. They are often identified as Kiwiana.
Vidal Golosinas is a Spanish manufacturer and marketer of confectionery, specialising in the production of liquorice and gummy candies.
Turkish delight or lokum (/lɔ.kʊm/) is a family of confections based on a gel of starch and sugar. Premium varieties consist largely of chopped dates, pistachios, hazelnuts or walnuts bound by the gel; traditional varieties are often flavored with rosewater, mastic gum, bergamot orange, or lemon. Other common flavors include cinnamon and mint. The confection is often packaged and eaten in small cubes dusted with icing sugar, copra, or powdered cream of tartar to prevent clinging. In the production process, soapwort may be used as an emulsifying additive.
Hope and Greenwood is a traditional confectionery business based in London, England.
Allen's, earlier A. W. Allen Limited, is an Australian brand of confectionery products produced by Nestlé. Allen's is the top brand of sugar confectionery in Australia. It is best known for Minties, a soft chewable mint-flavoured confectionery, and their varieties of 'Party Mix' lollies.
Shane Confectionery is an American candy shop and candy producer, located at 110 Market Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Currently owned by Ryan and Eric Berley, it is considered the longest-running confectionery business in the United States. The original confectionery business at the location opened in 1863. They are known for making traditional specialties including previous owner Edward Shane's buttercream chocolates and Pennsylvania clear toy candy.
Winter ice cream is a Hungarian confectionery similar in appearance to ice cream in a cone, but traditionally having ganache or a similar kind of sweet cream filling with usually a chocolate-cocoa flavoring. It gained popularity in the 1970s in communist Hungary, being produced as a winter alternative to "summer" ice creams, which were deemed to be too cold for winter sweets. Apart from grocery shops, it was frequently sold as part of the national railway's catering service. The confectionery's popularity faded in the early 1990s, when, after the end of communism, foreign candy manufacturers and their products appeared on the Hungarian market. However, along with some other snack foods and soft drinks of communist-era Hungary, winter ice cream garnered renewed interest in the late 2000s and 2010s.
Chocolala Chocolate Museum is a specialty museum dedicated to the history of the Estonian chocolate industry. It is located in the Tallinn Old Town district near Freedom Square, Tallinn, Estonia.
