A term with blurred edges but generally indicating a delicacy which is sweet, is usually eaten with the fingers, and keeps for some time. The word ‘confection’ is related to medieval Latin confecta and the English word Comfit, with meanings associated with the preparation of a mixture, and preservation in sugar.
Some but not all confectionery items are associated with particular festivals, for example Easter eggs (see Easter foods); or locations, as in seaside Rock; or rewards and luxury, for instance hand-made Chocolates.
Some are small pastries. Most, however, at least in W. Europe and N. America are sweets (American candy), made with a lot of sugar and additional ingredients to give flavour and texture. Sugar boiling is one method used to produce many favourites in this category.
Middle Eastern confectionery is rather different, using cereal ingredients. Turkish delight is thickened with Cornflour, and many forms of Halva have a basis of Semolina. Here and in Asia proper, although sugar-based sweets are made, there is no division between sugar confectionery and pastry or other sweet dishes.
Milk products are important ingredients in Indian confectionery. (See Indian sweets; Milk reduction.) The textures of many Indian confections are produced by varying this and the proportions of cereals and pulses, from curd alone to cereal or pulse alone. The sugar content of an Indian sweet may be quite high, but with a few exceptions, sugar is not used to govern the texture.
Preferences as to the flavour of sweets differ between West and East. In a typical western sweet, with its high concentration of sugar, the intense sweetness may be offset by a contrasting flavour such as the sharpness of acid fruit or the bitterness of Caramel, Chocolate, Coffee, or black treacle. Asian sweets, with a lower proportion of sugar, especially those of India, generally rely on spices and perfumes as flavouring agents. Westerners often find them stodgy in texture and insipid in flavour. As an example of an extreme and illiberal view, one may take that of J. W. L. Thudichum (1895), who wrote:
The so-called confectioneries made by native Hindoos, in the Indian and colonial Exhibition in London were, either indifferent to flatness, or simply repulsive.
The stalactite-like pipes made of syrup and starch, resembling bullose macaroni, baked in foetid oil, no amount of enthusiasm could find attractive, or even, consumable.
Indians may find western confections equally deplorable, but have been more tactful in their criticisms.
Further east, in China and Japan, the sweet tooth is less evident. That is not to say that sweets do not exist: sugar sticks and candied fruits, as well as sweet pastries and raw sugar cane for chewing, are mentioned in ancient Chinese writings. Both the Chinese and the Japanese have long made malt extract for use as a sweetener. But sweets have been an occasional luxury, to be eaten at festivals, for example.
When sugar first became known in Europe it was a rare and costly commodity, valued mainly for its supposed medicinal qualities and finding its place in the pharmacopoeia of the medieval apothecary. This history no doubt accounts in part for the way in which sugar-based sweets have been treated as a category apart from other sweetmeats.
Sugar gradually became more widely available in Europe during the Middle Ages. In Britain, it was considered to be an excellent remedy for winter colds. It might be eaten in the form of candy crystals, scented and coloured with roses or violets. Or it might be made into little twisted sticks which were called in Latin penida, later Anglicized to ‘pennets’. The tradition of penida survives most clearly in American stick Candy which is similarly twisted and flavoured with essences supposed to be effective against colds, such as oil of Wintergreen. The British Barley sugar which was first made in the 17th century was for a long time sold in twisted sticks, which have only recently begun to disappear. A vast range of ‘cough sweets’ also carries on the apothecaries' tradition, as do other confections: Marshmallow and Liquorice have both been used as medicine.
While sugar was still an expensive luxury, Honey, though not cheap either, was widely available. There is a widespread and longstanding tradition of simple home-made sweets based on honey (even if sugar is used in modern versions because it is now cheaper), from Ukrainian forms of Nougat to the old-fashioned Toffees of Wales and Ireland.
Confections made either in the home or by tradesmen known as comfitmakers in the 16th and 17th centuries in England included many fruit-based items such as Suckets, fruit pastes, preserves, conserves, Marmalades, jellies, and Candied fruits. Candied violets were also fashionable. Many of these confections have some basis in the desire to preserve fruit for winter use; some were regarded as medicinal or aphrodisiac. Marzipan was also popular; and comfits, or sugar-plums, gave their name to the trade. These sweets were important components of the final course or banquet in the meals of wealthy households. This involved all kinds of sweetmeats, tarts, spiced cakes, and gingerbread, consumed with sweet wines. Even the crockery might be edible, when made from a confection called sugar plate, a mixture of powdered sugar, rosewater, and gum tragacanth.
Sweets were served at other times: served with wine for visitors, given as presents, and copiously fed to expectant and nursing mothers to build up their strength. It was an era of a prodigiously sweet tooth, and nowhere more so than in Britain. Foreign visitors commented on the sugar-rotted, blackened teeth of the English aristocracy, including those of Queen Elizabeth herself, mentioned by a German observer at the end of the 16th century as an affliction from which the English suffered, as a result of consuming too much sugar.
Throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries, making confections at home was regarded as a suitable pastime for elegant and wealthy ladies. Their realm often also included beauty preparations, perfumes, and medicines. Sir Hugh Platt's Delightes for Ladies (1609) is an example of a work focused on such interests. The survival of such books has resulted in our knowing more about home-made sweets of that period than about professionally made ones; yet there were numerous professional confectioners, some making their products for sale and some in the employment of rich households. It would have been a hardy lady who dared to try to make a banquet centrepiece herself.
During the 17th and 18th centuries the skills of sugar boiling diffused from Italy and France. Some confections, such as suckets of lettuce stalks or eringo, disappeared. New flavourings, in the form of coffee and chocolate, were tentatively used (their main use at this time was for drinks). An innovation confined mainly to Britain was treacle or molasses from sugar cane. This was first used in the 1660s for gingerbread, but soon found its way into confectionery. Black treacle toffee is an old-established sweet, still highly popular in Britain. By the mid-18th century, the banquet course of a large dinner, with its abundant sweets had gone out of fashion. Sweets and sweet dishes still appeared as part of the second course, but they were less important than before. Plenty of sweets were still eaten at other times. This shift in practice coincided with a change in the nature of the dense, sugary fruit pastes and conserves which had been a feature of the banquet. A rough notion of the importance of hygiene in the sealing of jars of preserves was developing, and there was no need to reduce preserves to such a dry consistency. Thus the old suckets and marmalades began to yield to jams of the modern type.
Chocolate became important in confectionery in the 19th century, when the Dutchman Conrad van Houten invented a process for removing much of the naturally occurring fat associated with cocoa. This allowed the use of chocolate for bars and for coating purposes. See chocolate in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the same period advances in science led to understanding of the principles behind sugar boiling, and the application of technology allowed the production of cheap sweets on a large scale. Throughout the early part of the century, these were frequently coloured with derivatives of mercury, arsenic, and lead and were the cause of illness and sometimes death. Concern on this score was partly responsible for the legislation which now controls food standards in Britain.
By the end of the 19th century, many of the confections familiar today were in production. The companies producing them had become household names through vigorous advertising campaigns. Whatever else western adults may have forgotten about their childhood, the likelihood is that they recall effortlessly the names—and texture and flavour—of the confectionery they enjoyed as children.
For a French term which corresponds in important respects to confectionery, see friandise.
Laura Mason has written about several aspects of British food in books including Sugar Plums and Sherbet (1998), Farmhouse Cookery (2005), and Traditional Foods of Britain (1999), which she co-authored with Catherine Brown.
Mason, Laura (1998), Sugar Plums and Sherbet, Totnes: Prospect Books.
Thudichum, J. L. W. (1895), The Spirit of Cookery, London: Bailliere, Tindall & Cox.
