These Christmas Candy Recipes Will Help You Sweeten the Season (2024)

FAQs

Which candy is associated with Christmas? ›

A candy cane is a cane-shaped stick candy often associated with Christmastide, as well as Saint Nicholas Day. It is traditionally white with red stripes and flavored with peppermint, but the canes also come in a variety of other flavors and colors.

Every trip past the candy dish yielded a handful of cut rock candy, rainbow gems, baby ribbons, chocolate-filled straws, filled raspberries, and other treats to suck on while opening gifts. Other Christmas classics include peppermint patties and candy canes.

A Christmas legend

There's some mystery surrounding the origins of candy canes because there are no exact records of their invention. One well-regarded story suggests that in 1670, a choirmaster in Cologne, Germany, gave out sugar sticks to the children as a way to soothe them during the long nativity ceremony.

According to America's Favorite Christmas Candy by State Report, a comprehensive study by research firm HubScore that delved into a survey of the top 20 favorite Christmas candies, Kit Kat ranked top in 13 states followed by a tie between Skittles and candy canes, both ranked top in six states.

The first candy cane most likely took shape in 17^th century Europe when people were enjoying pulled sugars, the parent to today's candy sticks. At that time, somewhere in Germany, an unknown person added a hook to the stick.

One theory behind the tradition of oranges in the stocking stems from the generosity of Saint Nicholas (also known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle and Old Saint Nick), who was the son of a wealthy merchant and later in life a bishop.

Gingerbread. The holidays wouldn't be the same without the sweet smell of gingerbread seeping through the hallways. Gingerbread is a timeless Christmas flavor and can be baked into nearly everything. Cookies, muffins bread—you name it!

The dire crop outlook recently pushed wholesale cocoa prices to the highest in almost 45 years, and sugar to the most in over a decade, further raising the cost of making treats ahead of Christmas.

Christmas Candy Quick Facts

72% of people eat a candy cane starting on the straight end, the rest start on the curved end. Approximately 150 million chocolate Santas are produced annually. The largest candy cane in the world was made in Switzerland. It was 51 feet long.

In 1847, he made a candy to symbolize Christ. The cane's "J" shape stands for Jesus; when turned upside-down, it becomes a shepherd's staff. The white color signifies purity; the red represents Christ's blood, shed for the world's sins, and three red stripes symbolize the trinity.

What does an upside down candy cane mean? ›

This hard candy was shaped so it would resemble a “J” for Jesus or, turned upside down, a shepherd's staff. He made it white to represent the purity of Christ.

The idea of candy began by the caveman who ate honey. The first candy was used by the Ancient Egyptians for cult purposes. In ancient times, Egyptians, Arabs, and Chinese made candies with fruits and nuts that caramelized with honey. The two oldest candy types are licorice and ginger.

In 1976, Mars eliminated red-colored M&M's because of health concerns over the dye amaranth (FD&C Red #2), which was a suspected carcinogen, and replaced them with orange M&M's. This was done despite the fact that M&M's did not contain the dye; the action was purely to satisfy worried consumers.

Launched in 1866—nineteen years after Fry's created the first moulded, solid chocolate eating bar (in 1847)— Fry's Chocolate Cream is the first mass-produced chocolate bar and is the world's oldest chocolate bar brand.

Luckily, the origins of the candy cane are slightly more documented than some other holiday traditions. Multiple books have been written on the subject and seem to agree on a common possible explanation: that the candy cane was first invented as an attempt to keep children quiet during the Christmas church service.

The big mystery is when confectioners started to add peppermint to candy canes, which were a Christmastime treat. The unconfirmed legend of the candy cane itself is that a German choirmaster asked the candy maker to add a shepherd's crook to the candy stick to remind kids of the nativity scene, but nobody really knows.