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Humans started making sweet treats in ancient Egypt, using honey as a sweetener.
The Egyptians combined honey with nuts and fruits to create the very first hard candy, which was mainly enjoyed by the Egyptian elite.
Eventually, the Indians figured out they could boil the juice from sugarcane and create a solid form of sugar, which led to khanda, the root for the modern word candy.
The first mass production of hard candy dates back to the 9th century, when the Persians invented rock candy.
The Persians created the treat by cooling a highly saturated sugar solution, which formed sugar crystals.
This is where most historians believe hard candy as we know it started.
The first hard candies in Europe were actually medicine, called electuaries.
The people who created these candies were called Apothecaries, and they’d mix sugar and medicinal herbs together.
Sugar was used to make the medicine easier to consume, just like some children’s medicines are produced today.
By the Victorian Era, there was a whole array of these drugs:
The first recipe for hard candy dates back to the 17th century to Mother Elisabeth Pidoux in 1638 at a Benedictine convent in Moret-sur-Loing, France.
The recipe created hard candy with barley sugar made with boiled barley grains.
Some candy makers in Europe still use this old recipe in the modern day.
The first candy canes were actually straight, created by a choirmaster in Cologne, Germany, in 1670 to keep children calm.
The red and white colors were added to symbolize Jesus Christ’s blood and purity.
They later would evolve to have their well known curved shape when August Imgard decorated a spruce tree with candy canes in 1847.
This soon became a typical Christmas tradition in the USA.
The Industrial Revolution transformed the production of goods, including the creation of hard candy.
The candy making process went from a tedious hand making method to a mechanized process that made candy more cheaper and more accessible to the masses.
This process became highly efficient with the invention of the steam engine.
Candy factories would pop up all over the world, spreading hard candy to every nook and cranny.
A man named George Smith accidentally invented the lollipop in 1908 when he stirred boiling candy with sticks.
He patented the name “Lolly Pop” in 1931.
Mass production of lollipops would start soon after the invention of the first lollipop machine, which was capable of producing 60 lollipops per minute.
Lifesavers were invented by Clarence Crane in 1912 as a summer candy.
It was one of the first hard candies to be able to handle extreme heat without melting.
It started out as peppermint flavored but would eventually branch out to all kinds of flavors.
Lifesavers gained widespread popularity when they were commonly used in ration packs for US soldiers during WW2.
The most popular hard candy today is Jolly Ranchers, which Bill and Dorothy Harmsen invented in 1949 in Golden, Colorado.
The company started as an ice cream shop, but due to bad winter sales, it shifted to candy, creating Jolly Ranchers.
They became popular for their eye-popping fruity flavors.
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