Susie Hitchcock-Hall is an entrepreneur and business owner from Texas. She is the president and founder of Susie's South Forty Confections, [1] started in 1991. She has been dubbed the "Willy Wonka of West Texas". [2]
Hitchcock-Hall started her candy business from her kitchen in 1991. In 1992 she opened the first plant with her partner south of Midland and the name Susie's South Forty was started. [3]
She has a Master Confectioner Emeritus status with Retail Confectioners International. She set a record in the Guinness World Records for the largest piece of toffee ever created. [4] It was a Texas-shaped 2,940 pound batch of her original recipe for Texas Pecan Toffee. [5] Hitchcock-Hall's candy company has been featured on the Food Network, has customers in over 35 countries and has been purchased by U.S. presidents including the Bush family and a Kennedy. [6] [3]
Hitchcock-Hall was a chair for the United Way Capital Campaign, the Midland Chamber of Commerce and the Midland Manufacturer's Association. She is the chair of the Permian Basin Community Center.
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, also called sweets or lollies, is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, 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.
Cotton candy, also known as fairy floss and candy floss, is a spun sugar confection that resembles cotton. It usually contains small amounts of flavoring or food coloring.
The Heath bar is a candy bar made of toffee, almonds, and milk chocolate. It was originally marketed by L. S. Heath beginning in 1914 and subsequently by Leaf Inc. and, since 1996, by Hershey.
Fudge is a type of sugar candy that is made by mixing sugar, butter and milk, heating it to the soft-ball stage at 240 °F (115 °C), and then beating the mixture while it cools so that it acquires a smooth, creamy consistency. In texture, this crystalline candy falls in between fondant icing and hard caramels.
Butterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, but other ingredients are part of some recipes, such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt. The earliest known recipes, in mid-19th century Yorkshire, used treacle (molasses) in place of or in addition to sugar.
Glenna Maxey Goodacre was an American sculptor, best known for having designed the obverse of the Sacagawea dollar that entered circulation in the US in 2000, and the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Milka is a brand of chocolate confection which originated in Switzerland in 1901 and has been manufactured and marketed by US-based company Mondelez International since 2012, when it started following the steps of its predecessor Kraft Foods Inc., which had taken over the brand in 1990. For more than 100 years, Milka has been primarily produced in Lörrach, Germany, producing about 140,000 tonnes of chocolate in 2012. It is sold in bars and a number of novelty shapes for Easter and Christmas.
Nonpareils are a decorative confectionery of tiny balls made with sugar and starch, traditionally an opaque white but now available in many colors. Their origin is uncertain, but they may have evolved out of the pharmaceutical use of sugar, as they were a miniature version of comfits. The French name has been interpreted to mean they were "without equal" for intricate decoration of cakes, desserts, and other sweets, and for the elaborate pièces montées constructed as table ornaments.
Butter Brickle is a chocolate-coated toffee first sold 20 November 1924 by candy manufacturer John G. Woodward Co. of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and toffee pieces for flavoring ice cream, manufactured by The Fenn Bros. Ice Cream and Candy Co. of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Gertrude Hawk Chocolates is a chocolate company based in Dunmore, Pennsylvania.
McCowan's Ltd was a Scottish confectionery company specialising in toffee and fudge. Their most famous product is Highland Toffee.
The Warrell Corporation is a confectionery and snack food manufacturing company based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
Midland Park Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Midland, Texas, United States. Opened in 1980, it is anchored by two Dillard's stores, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods and Ross Dress for Less.
Chocolate-covered cherries are a traditional popular dessert confection. Variations include cherry cordials with liquid fillings often including cherry liqueur, as well as chocolate-covered candied cherries and chocolate-covered dried cherries.
Abi is a singer/songwriter signed to One Country Records.
Jacqueline Noel was librarian for the city of Tacoma, Washington. She was a leader in promoting the colonial history of the United States and helped to expand Washington State's public library system. Noel is also credited with coining the name for the popular candy, Almond Roca.
Katie Sherrod is an American journalist who was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1991, she was fired from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram over accusations of plagiarism.
Gertrude Jones Hawk (1903-1987) was an American candy maker and entrepreneur who created the Gertrude Hawk Chocolates company based upon her experience making chocolate from her home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Gertrude Hawk was central to the company's financial success due to her development of fundraising networks in which local civic institutions could resell chocolates to support their own programs.