Alternative names | Sweets, lollies |
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Type | Sugar confectionery |
Main ingredients | Sugar or honey |
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.
Physically, candy is characterized by the use of a significant amount of sugar or sugar substitutes. Unlike a cake or loaf of bread that would be shared among many people, candies are usually made in smaller pieces. However, the definition of candy also depends upon how people treat the food. Unlike sweet pastries served for a dessert course at the end of a meal, candies are normally eaten casually, often with the fingers, as a snack between meals. Each culture has its own ideas of what constitutes candy rather than dessert. The same food may be a candy in one culture and a dessert in another.
Candy is a sweet food product.
Sugar candies include hard candies, soft candies, caramels, marshmallows, taffy, and other candies whose principal ingredient is sugar. Commercially, sugar candies are often divided into groups according to the amount of sugar they contain and their chemical structure.
Konpeitō is a traditional Japanese sugar candy. When finished, it is almost 100% sugar.
Fruit-shaped hard candy is a common type of sugar candy, containing sugar, color, flavor, and a tiny bit of water.
Chikki are homemade nut brittles popular in India. Between the nuts or seeds is hard sugar candy.
In Germany, Haribo gummy bears were the first gummi candy ever made. They are soft and chewy.