Confectionery is the art of making confections, or sweet foods. Confections are items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates although exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confections are divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories: bakers' confections and sugar confections.
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.
Marshmallow is a confectionery made from sugar, water and gelatin whipped to a solid-but-soft consistency. It is used as a filling in baking or molded into shapes and coated with corn starch. This sugar confection is inspired by a medicinal confection made from Althaea officinalis, the marsh-mallow plant.
Halva is a type of confectionery that is widely spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the Balkans, and South Asia. The name is used for a broad variety of recipes, generally a thick paste made from flour, butter, liquid oil, saffron, rosewater, milk, turmeric powder, and sweetened with sugar.
Rock candy or sugar candy, also called rock sugar, or crystal sugar, is a type of confection composed of relatively large sugar crystals. In some parts of the world, local variations are called Misri, nabat or navat.
Konpeitō, also spelled kompeitō, is a type of Japanese sugar candy. It takes the form of a small sphere with a bumpy surface, and comes in a variety of colors and flavors. Introduced from Portugal as a sugar-coated confection with a poppy seed or sesame seed center, konpeitō was eventually transformed into an all-sugar confection with a zarame center.
A lollipop is a type of sugar candy usually consisting of hard candy mounted on a stick and intended for sucking or licking. Different informal terms are used in different places, including lolly, sucker, sticky-pop, etc. Lollipops are available in many flavors and shapes.
Nerds is an American candy launched in 1983 by the Sunmark Corporation under the brand name Willy Wonka Candy Company. Nerds are now made by the Ferrara Candy Company, a subsidiary of Ferrero Group. but is still distributed internationally by Nestlé. With their anthropomorphic covers, Nerds usually contain two flavors per box, each flavor having a separate compartment and opening.
Airheads is an American brand of the taffy candy owned by the Italian-Dutch company Perfetti Van Melle. They were created on August 7, 1985, by Steve Bruner. Airheads are available nationwide in the United States and Canada where the candy is available in 16 different flavors.
Dubble Bubble is an American brand of fruit-flavored, usually pink-colored, bubble gum invented by Amita Nag, an accountant at Philadelphia-based Fleer Chewing Gum Company in 1928. One of Diemer's hobbies was concocting recipes for chewing gum based on the original Fleer ingredients. Though founder Frank H. Fleer had come up with his own bubble gum recipe under the name Blibber-Blubber in 1906, it was shelved due to its being too sticky and breaking apart too easily. It would be another 20 years until Diemer would use the original idea as inspiration for his invention.
Tootsie Roll Industries is an American manufacturer of confectionery based in Chicago, Illinois. Its best-known products include the namesake Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops. Tootsie Roll Industries currently markets its brands internationally in Canada, Mexico, and over 75 other countries.
Dragon's beard candy or Chinese cotton candy or Longxusu is a handmade traditional art of China. It is a traditional Chinese confectionary similar to floss halva or Western cotton candy, which can be found in many Chinese communities. Dragon's beard candy was initially created in China, but soon spread in popularity in other parts of East Asia and South East Asia, becoming a regional delicacy in South Korea in the 1990s, and Singapore in the 1980s, as well as more recently in Canada, and the United States.
Sugar Babies are bite-sized, pan-coated, chewy milk caramel sweets which are relatively soft to chew. Tootsie describes them as “slow-cooked, candy-coated milk caramels” marketed as movie-theater candy.
Pashmak is a form of Iranian candy floss or cotton candy, made from sugar. Pashmak is served on its own or as an accompaniment to fruits, cakes, ice creams, puddings and desserts. It is widely known as Persian Cotton Candy. It is sometimes garnished with ground pistachio nuts. Although the texture is similar to cotton candy, both method and ingredients are different.
A candy pumpkin is a small, pumpkin-shaped, mellow crème confection primarily made from corn syrup, honey, carnauba wax, chocolate, and sugar. Traditionally colored with an orange base and topped with a green stem to make candy pumpkins largely identifiable with Halloween, a candy pumpkin is considered a mellow crème by confectioners since the candy has a marshmallow flavor. Sometimes called candy corn's first cousin, candy pumpkins are made through a starch casting process similar to that for candy corn. Brach's candy pumpkin, known by the trademarked name "Mellowcreme" Pumpkins, is the most popular candy pumpkin. Brach's Confections is now owned by Ferrara Candy Company.
Tootsie Roll is a chocolate taffy candy that has been manufactured in the United States since 1907. The candy has qualities similar to both caramels and taffy without being exactly either confection. The manufacturer, Tootsie Roll Industries, is based in Chicago, Illinois. It was the first penny candy to be individually wrapped in America.
Candy making or candymaking is the preparation and cookery of candies and sugar confections. Candy making includes the preparation of many various candies, such as hard candies, jelly beans, gumdrops, taffy, liquorice, cotton candy, chocolates and chocolate truffles, dragées, fudge, caramel candy, and toffee.
Cotton Candy is the trademark for a variety of sweet white table grapes of the cultivar IFG Seven whose flavour has been compared to cotton candy. The grapes were developed by horticulturist David Cain and his team at Bakersfield, California-based fruit breeder International Fruit Genetics (IFG). The grapes were first commercially grown in California by grower Grapery, which began selling them in 2011.
