Confectionery

Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult.[1] In general, though, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories, bakers' confections and sugar confections.[2]

"Sweetmeat" redirects here. For the racehorse, see Sweetmeat (horse).
Not to be confused with Sweetbread.

This Kransekake is a traditional Scandinavian baker's confection.

Bakers' confectionery, also called flour confections, includes principally sweet pastries, cakes, and similar baked goods.

Sugar confectionery includes candies (also called sweets in many English-speaking countries), candied nuts, chocolates, chewing gum, bubble gum, pastillage, and other confections that are made primarily of sugar. In some cases, chocolate confections (confections made of chocolate) are treated as a separate category, as are sugar-free versions of sugar confections.[3] The words candy (Canada & US), sweets (UK, Ireland and others), and lollies (Australia and New Zealand) are common words for the most common varieties of sugar confectionery.

The confectionery industry also includes specialized training schools and extensive historical records.[4] Traditional confectionery goes back to ancient times and continued to be eaten through the Middle Ages into the modern era.

History
Some Indian confectionery desserts from hundreds of varieties. In certain parts of India, these are called mithai or sweets. Sugar and desserts have a long history in India: by about 500 BCE, people in India had developed the technology to produce sugar crystals. In the local language, these crystals were called khanda (खण्ड), which is the source of the word candy.[5]

Before sugar was readily available in the ancient western world, confectionery was based on honey.[6] Honey was used in Ancient China, Ancient India, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome to coat fruits and flowers to preserve them or to create sweetmeats.[7] Between the 6th and 4th centuries BC, the Persians, followed by the Greeks, made contact with the Indian subcontinent and its "reeds that produce honey without bees". They adopted and then spread sugar and sugarcane agriculture.[8] Sugarcane is indigenous to tropical Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.[9][10][11][12][13]

In the early history of sugar usage in Europe, it was initially the apothecary who had the most important role in the production of sugar-based preparations. Medieval European physicians learned the medicinal uses of the material from the Arabs and Byzantine Greeks. One Middle Eastern remedy for rheums and fevers were little, twisted sticks of pulled sugar called in Arabic al fänäd or al pänäd. These became known in England as alphenics, or more commonly as penidia, penids, pennet or pan sugar. They were the precursors of barley sugar and modern cough drops. In 1390, the Earl of Derby paid "two shillings for two pounds of penydes."

Jordan almonds. Sugar-coated nuts or spices for non-medicinal purposes marked the beginning of confectionery in late medieval England.

As the non-medicinal applications of sugar developed, the comfitmaker, or confectioner gradually came into being as a separate trade. In the late medieval period the words confyt, comfect or cumfitt were generic terms for all kinds of sweetmeats made from fruits, roots, or flowers preserved with sugar. By the 16th century, a cumfit was more specifically a seed, nut or small piece of spice enclosed in a round or ovoid mass of sugar. The production of comfits was a core skill of the early confectioner, who was known more commonly in 16th and 17th century England as a comfitmaker. Reflecting their original medicinal purpose, however, comfits were also produced by apothecaries and directions on how to make them appear in dispensatories as well as cookery texts. An early medieval Latin name for an apothecary was confectionarius, and it was in this sort of sugar work that the activities of the two trades overlapped and that the word "confectionery" originated.[4]

Sweetening agents

Confections are defined by the presence of sweeteners. These are usually sugars, but it is possible to buy sugar-free candies, such as sugar-free peppermints. The most common sweetener for home cooking is table sugar, which is chemically a disaccharide containing both glucose and fructose. Hydrolysis of sucrose gives a mixture called invert sugar, which is sweeter and is also a common commercial ingredient. Finally, confections, especially commercial ones, are sweetened by a variety of syrups obtained by hydrolysis of starch. These sweeteners include all types of corn syrup.[14]

Bakers' confectionery
Petits fours are baker's confections.

Bakers' confectionery includes sweet baked goods, especially those that are served for the dessert course. Bakers' confections are sweet foods that feature flour as a main ingredient and are baked. Major categories include cakes, sweet pastries, doughnuts, scones, and cookies.[15] In the Middle East and Asia, flour-based confections predominate.

The definition of which foods are "confectionery" vs "bread" can vary based on cultures and laws. In Ireland, the definition of "bread" as a "staple food" for tax purposes requires that the sugar or fat content be no more than 2% of the weight of the flour, so many products sold as bread in the US would be treated as confectionery there.[16][17]

Types
See also: List of cakes, List of cookies, List of doughnut varieties, and List of pastries

Cakes have a somewhat bread-like texture, and many earlier cakes, such as the centuries-old stollen (fruit cake), or the even older king cake, were rich yeast breads. The variety of styles and presentations extends from simple to elaborate. Major categories include butter cakes, tortes, and foam cakes. Confusingly, some confections that have the word cake in their names, such as cheesecake, are not technically cakes, while others, such as Boston cream pie are cakes despite seeming to be named something else.

Pastry is a large and diverse category of baked goods, united by the flour-based doughs used as the base for the product. These doughs are not always sweet, and the sweetness may come from the sugar, fruit, chocolate, cream, or other fillings that are added to the finished confection. Pastries can be elaborately decorated, or they can be plain dough.

Doughnuts may be fried or baked.

  • Glazed raised doughnut
  • Oliebollen and similar doughnuts are fried in hot fat.
  • Decorated doughnuts
  • Apple fritter with powdered sugar

Scones and related sweet quick breads, such as bannock, are similar to baking powder biscuits and, in sweeter, less traditional interpretations, can seem like a cupcake.

  • Scones with jam
  • Cranberry scones with icing
  • A sweet rock cake

Cookies are small, sweet baked treats. They originated as small cakes, and some traditional cookies have a soft, cake-like texture. Others are crisp or hard.

  • Thin wafer cookies such as pizzelle have been made since the Middle Ages.[18]
  • Spicy lebkuchen are a Christmas treat in Germany.
  • Cookies can be elaborately decorated.
  • Cookies can be mass-produced.

Sugar confectionery

Sugar confections include sweet, sugar-based foods, which are usually eaten as snack food. This includes sugar candies, chocolates, candied fruits and nuts, chewing gum, and sometimes ice cream. In some cases, chocolate confections are treated as a separate category, as are sugar-free versions of sugar confections.[19]

Different dialects of English use regional terms for sugar confections:

  • In Britain, Ireland, and some Commonwealth countries, sweets (the Scottish Gaelic word suiteis is a derivative). Candy is used specifically for rock candy and occasionally for (brittle) boiled sweets. Lollies are boiled sweets fixed on sticks.
  • In Australia and New Zealand, lollies. Chewy and Chuddy are Australian slang for chewing gum.[20]
  • In North America, candy, although this term generally refers to a specific range of confectionery and does not include some items of sugar confectionery (e.g. ice cream). Sweet is occasionally used, as well as treat.

In the US, a chocolate-coated candy bar (e.g. Snickers) would be called a candy bar, in Britain more likely a chocolate bar than unspecifically a sweet.

American English British English
confectionery (formal) confectionery (formal)
rock candy, rock sugar sugar candy, candy
hard candy boiled sweet, candy (rare)
candied fruit, glazed fruit candied fruit
cotton candy, fairy floss (archaic)[21] candy floss
candy, treat (rare), sweet (rare) sweet
dessert pudding, sweet, dessert
pudding custard, blancmange, jelly
chocolate bar, chocolate candy bar bar of chocolate (e.g. Cadbury's Milk Chocolate)
candy bar (chocolate coated types) chocolate bar (e.g. Snickers)
box of chocolates chocolates, box of chocolates

Classification

The United Nations' International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) scheme (revision 4) classifies both chocolate and sugar confectionery as ISIC 1073, which includes the manufacture of chocolate and chocolate confectionery; sugar confectionery proper (caramels, cachous, nougats, fondant, white chocolate), chewing gum, preserving fruit, nuts, fruit peels, and making confectionery lozenges and pastilles.[22] In the European Union, the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE) scheme (revision 2) matches the UN classification, under code number 10.82.

In the United States, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS 2012) splits sugar confectionery across three categories: National industry code 311340 for all non-chocolate confectionery manufacturing, 311351 for chocolate and confectionery manufacturing from cacao beans, and national industry 311352 for confectionery manufacturing from purchased chocolate.[23]

Ice cream and sorbet are classified with dairy products under ISIC 1050, NACE 10.52, and NAICS 311520.[24]

Examples
Further information: List of candies
Rock candy is simply sugar, with optional coloring or flavor.
A bar of chocolate. To be eaten pure, or used as an ingredient.
Assorted fudges
Brittles are a combination of nuts and caramelized sugar.

Sugar confectionery items include candies, lollipops, candy bars, chocolate, cotton candy, and other sweet items of snack food. Some of the categories and types of sugar confectionery include the following:[14]

  • Chocolates: Bite-sized confectioneries generally made with chocolate, considered different from a candy bar made of chocolate.
  • Divinity: A nougat-like confectionery based on egg whites with chopped nuts.
  • Dodol: A toffee-like delicacy popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines
  • Dragée: Sugar-coated almonds and other types of sugar panned candies.
  • Fudge: Made by boiling milk and sugar to the soft-ball stage. In the US, it tends to be chocolate-flavored.
  • Halvah: Confectionery based on tahini, a paste made from ground sesame seeds.
  • Hard candy: Based on sugars cooked to the hard-crack stage. Examples include lollipops, jawbreakers (or gobstoppers), lemon drops, peppermint drops and disks, candy canes, rock candy, etc. Also included are types often mixed with nuts such as brittle, which is similar to chikkis.
  • Ice cream: Frozen, flavored cream, often containing small pieces of chocolate, fruits and/or nuts.
  • Jelly candies: Including those based on sugar and starch, pectin, gum, or gelatin such as Turkish delight (lokum), jelly beans, gumdrops, jujubes, gummies, etc.[25]
  • Liquorice: Containing extract of the liquorice root, this candy is chewier and more resilient than gums or gelatin candies. For example, Liquorice allsorts. It has a similar taste to star anise.
  • Marshmallow: For example, circus peanuts.
  • Marzipan: An almond-based confection, doughy in consistency.
  • Mithai: A generic term for confectionery in the Indian subcontinent, typically made from dairy products and/or some form of flour. Sugar or molasses are used as sweeteners.
  • Persipan: similar to marzipan, but made with peaches or apricots instead of almonds.
  • Pastillage: A thick sugar paste made with gelatin, water, and confectioner's sugar, similar to gum paste, which is moulded into shapes, which then harden.
  • Tablet: A crumbly milk-based soft and hard candy, based on sugars cooked to the soft ball stage. Comes in several forms, such as wafers and heart shapes. Not to be confused with tableting, a method of candy production.
  • Taffy (British: chews): A sugar confection that is folded many times above 120 °F (50 °C), incorporating air bubbles thus reducing its density and making it opaque.
  • Toffee: A confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses along with butter. Toffee has a glossy surface and textures ranging from soft and sticky to a hard, brittle material. Its brown color and smoky taste arise from the caramelization of the sugars.

Storage and shelf life

Shelf life is largely determined by the amount of water present in the candy and the storage conditions.[26] High-sugar candies, such as boiled candies, can have a shelf life of many years if kept covered in a dry environment. Spoilage of low-moisture candies tends to involve a loss of shape, color, texture, and flavor, rather than the growth of dangerous microbes. Impermeable packaging can reduce spoilage due to storage conditions.

Candies spoil more quickly if they have different amounts of water in different parts of the candy (for example, a candy that combines marshmallow and nougat), or if they are stored in high-moisture environments.[26] This process is due to the effects of water activity, which results in the transfer of unwanted water from a high-moisture environment into a low-moisture candy, rendering it rubbery, or the loss of desirable water from a high-moisture candy into a dry environment, rendering the candy dry and brittle.

Another factor, affecting only non-crystalline amorphous candies, is the glass transition process.[26] This can cause amorphous candies to lose their intended texture.

Cultural roles
A Japanese vendor selling sweets (Wagashi) in "The Great Buddha Sweet Shop" from the Miyako meisho zue (ja:都名所図会) (1787)

Both bakers' and sugar confections are used to offer hospitality to guests.

Confections are used to mark celebrations or events, such as a wedding cake, birthday cake or Halloween.

Tourists commonly eat confections as part of their travels. The indulgence in rich, sugary foods is seen as a special treat, and choosing local specialties is popular. For example, visitors to Vienna eat Sachertorte and visitors to seaside resorts in the UK eat Blackpool rock candy. Transportable confections like fudges and tablet may be purchased as souvenirs.[27]

Nutrition

Generally, confections are low in micronutrients and protein but high in calories. They may be fat-free foods, although some confections, especially fried doughs and chocolate, are high-fat foods. Many confections are considered empty calories. Specially formulated chocolate has been manufactured in the past for military use as a high-density food energy source.

Many sugar confections, especially caramel-coated popcorn and the different kinds of sugar candy, are defined in US law as foods of minimal nutritional value.[28]

Risks

Contaminants and coloring agents in confectionery can be particularly harmful to children. Therefore, confectionery contaminants, such as high levels of lead, have been restricted to 1 ppm in the US. There is no specific maximum in the EU.[29]

Candy colorants, particularly yellow colorants such as E102 Tartrazine, E104 Quinoline Yellow WS and E110 Sunset Yellow FCF, have many restrictions around the world. Tartrazine, for example, can cause allergic and asthmatic reactions and was once banned in Austria, Germany, and Norway. Some countries such as the UK have asked the food industry to phase out the use of these colorants, especially for products marketed to children.[30]

See also

References
  1. Davidson, Alan (2014). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press. p. 213. ISBN 9780199677337.
  2. International Food Information Service, ed. (2009). Dictionary of Food Science and Technology (2nd ed.). Chichester, U.K.: Wiley–Blackwell. p. 106. ISBN 9781405187404.
  3. Edwards, W.P. (2000). The Science of Sugar Confectionery. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry. p. 1. ISBN 9780854045938.
  4. "The Art of Confectionery". Historic Food.
  5. Elizabeth Abbot (2010). Sugar: A Bitterweet History. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-590-20297-5.
  6. NPCS (2013). Confectionery Products Handbook (Chocolate, Toffees, Chewing Gum & Sugar Free Confectionery). India: Asia Pacific Business Press. p. 1. ISBN 9788178331539.
  7. Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne (2009). A History of Food. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781444305142.
  8. "Agribusiness Handbook: Sugar beet white sugar" (PDF). Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations. 2009.
  9. George Watt (1893), The Economic Products of India, W.H. Allen & Co., Vol 6, Part II, pages 29–30
  10. J.A. Hill (1902), The Anglo-American Encyclopedia, Volume 7, page 725
  11. Thomas E. Furia (1973), CRC Handbook of Food Additives, Second Edition, Volume 1, ISBN 978-0849305429, page 7 (Chapter 1, by Thomas D. Luckey)
  12. Mary Ellen Snodgrass (2004), Encyclopedia of Kitchen History, ISBN 978-1579583804, Routledge, pages 145–146
  13. "American Heritage Dictionary Entry: candy". Ahdictionary.com. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  14. Terry Richardson, Geert Andersen, "Confectionery" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry 2005 Wiley-VCH, Weinheim. doi:10.1002/14356007.a07_411
  15. International Food Information Service, ed. (2009). Dictionary of Food Science and Technology (2nd ed.). Chichester, U.K.: Wiley–Blackwell. p. 39. ISBN 9781405187404.
  16. admin. "Irish Supreme Court says metro bread cannot legally be called bread under tax law | FR24 News English". Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  17. Lembo, Allie. "12 breads that have more sugar than candy". Insider. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  18. The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Oxford University Press. 1 April 2015. p. 368. ISBN 9780199313624.
  19. Edwards, W.P. (2000). The Science of Sugar Confectionery. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry. p. 1. ISBN 9780854045938.
  20. "Definition of chuddy Oxford dictionary (British & World English)", www.oxforddictionaries.com, 2014, retrieved 15 July 2014
  21. "Cotton Candy". The Straight Dope. 7 February 2000. Archived from the original on 29 June 2011. Retrieved 30 November 2011.
  22. "ISIC Rev.4 code 1073: Manufacture of cocoa, chocolate and sugar confectionery". United Nations Statistics Division, Classification Registry. 2014. Archived from the original on 22 July 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2014.
  23. "Correspondences for ISIC Rev.4 code 1073". United Nations Statistics Division. 2014. Archived from the original on 22 July 2014.
  24. "Correspondences for ISIC Rev.4 code 1050". United Nations Statistics Division. 2014. Archived from the original on 22 July 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2014.
  25. Margaret McWilliams. (2006) Nutrition and Dietetics Eighth edition edn. Prentice Hall: Pearson Education Inc.
  26. Ergun R, Lietha R, Hartel RW (February 2010). "Moisture and shelf life in sugar confections". Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 50 (2): 162–92. doi:10.1080/10408390802248833. PMID 20112158. S2CID 19980997.
  27. Cleave, Paul (2012). "Sugar in Tourism: 'Wrapped in Devonshire Sunshine'". Sugar Heritage and Tourism in Transition. Channel View Publications. pp. 159–172. ISBN 9781845413897.
  28. "Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value". www.fns.usda.gov. Appendix B of 7 CFR Part 210. Food and Nutrition Service, United States Department of Agriculture. 13 September 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
  29. EFSA Scientific Opinion on Lead in Food European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Retrieved 13 November 2012
  30. Ministers agree food Color ban BBC News, Retrieved 14 November 2012

Further reading
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