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What
is clear toy candy? It's a hard candy that often shaped like everyday
items, like boots, bunnies, dogs, horses and or even dishes. They were
traditionally given to children for Christmas so it could be a toy to play
with and a sweet treat to eat. Originally they were not on sticks and only
came in red, green and yellow (no added color). Also no flavor was added
to them.
When did clear toy candy start? That's a good
question and I have been trying to find out for awhile. I have found
early references to "barley sugar" which is a term I have found most
people today use interchangeably with clear toy candy. Most of the recipes for
barley sugar are almost the same as the recipes, or receipts for clear toy
candy. Some early references state that
barley sugar was used for medicinal purposes, like a cough drop. In
Domestic medicine, or, A treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases
by William Buchan (1790) that "When a cough is occasioned by acrid
humours tickling the throat and fauces, the patient should keep some soft
pectoral lozenges almost constantly in his mouth; as the Pontefract
liquorice cakes, barley-sugar, the common
balsamic lozenges, spanish juice, &c. These blunt the acrimony of the
humours, and by taking off their stimulating quality, help to appease the
cough."
Another early reference from
The cooks and confectioners dictionary (1723) states "The Carmel boiling
of Sugar is proper for Barley Sugar, and for a certain small Sugar Work
Called by that name, which is described in its proper place."
Most of the recipes
for barley sugar
call for the candy to be made into strips, not molded into shapes. |
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At some point people started
calling barley sugar, clear toy or candy toys. It seems that it was
with the development of the candy molds that could handle the high
temperatures. We know molds were patented in 1866 by
Thomas Mills but I have a receipt
from Thos. &
WM. C. Fry of Philadelphia dated Dec 23, 1850 for "10 Candy Toys at 18
cents each". In today's world with inflation that would be
would $4.59. This candy would have been just in time for a Christmas treat
for the children.
One of the earliest recipe I could find in print
for clear toy candy was in "The
Chicago Herald Cooking School: A Professional Cook's Book for
Household Use, Consisting of a Series of Menus for Every Day Meals and for
Private Entertainments, with Minute Instructions for Making Every Article
Named" Originally Published in the Chicago Daily Herald By Jessup
Whitehead. 1883. The candy here is called "222. Candy for Christmas Toy's, Ect."
The same recipe was republished in "The
American Pastry Cook" By Jessup Whitehead, Katherine Golden Bitting
Collection on Gastronomy. 1894
 For
those that could not afford the expensive molds there was an alternative,
make your own molds out of plaster of paris. Here are the directions on
how to do this from "The
American Pastry Cook" 1894 how to make "Plaster of Pairs" Molds for
candy. |
