Humbug (sweet)

Humbug
Type	Confectionery
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Main ingredients	Sugar
Ingredients generally used	Glycerine; colour; flavouring (usually peppermint);

Humbugs are a traditional hard-boiled sweet available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe and New Zealand. They are usually flavoured with peppermint^[1] and striped in two different colours (often black and white). In Australia, the black-and-white-striped humbugs may be aniseed flavoured. Humbugs may be cylinders with rounded ends wrapped in a twist of cellophane, or more traditionally tetrahedral, loose in a bag.^[1] Records of humbugs exist from as early as the 1820s, and they are referred to in the 1863 book Sylvia's Lovers as being a food from the North.^[2] The etymology is unknown.

Manufacture

A mixture of sugar, glycerine, colour and flavouring is heated to 145 °C (293 °F). This mixture is then poured out, stretched and folded many times. The stripes originate from a smaller piece of coloured mixture which is folded into the main mixture. The mixture is finally rolled into a long, thin cylinder and sliced into segments.^[3]

Bulls-eyes

A similar sweet is "bulls-eye" which has red-and-white or black-and-white stripes. These are peppermint-flavoured and are also known as bullets in the UK as they are similar in size to smoothbore musket balls.^{[citation needed]}

References

^ ^a ^b Davidson, Alan; Davidson, Jane; Saberi, Helen (2006). Jaine, Tom (ed.). The Oxford companion to food. OUP Oxford. ISBN 0-19-280681-5.
^ Ayto, John (1990). The Glutton's Glossary. Routledge. p. 144. ISBN 0-415-02647-4. humbug sweet -bah.
^ Renton, Alex (10 September 2009). "Humbugs, mints, gums and our Top 20 sweets". The Times. Retrieved 25 January 2011.