Humbug (sweet) facts for kids
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| Type | Confectionery |
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| Place of origin | United Kingdom |
| Main ingredients | Sugar |
| Ingredients generally used |
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Humbugs are a classic hard candy, also known as a "boiled sweet." You can find them in countries like the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They usually taste like peppermint and have cool stripes in two different colors, often black and white. In Australia, the black and white striped humbugs often taste like aniseed.
Humbugs can be shaped like small cylinders with rounded ends, often wrapped in clear plastic. Sometimes they are shaped more like tiny pyramids with rounded edges, sold loose in a bag. People have been enjoying humbugs since at least the 1820s! They were even mentioned in a book from 1863, showing they were popular in the North of England.
The name of this sweet is not connected to the famous phrase "Bah, humbug" from Charles Dickens' book A Christmas Carol. That expression means someone is unhappy or thinks something is fake. However, offering humbugs around Christmas time can now be seen as a funny or ironic joke.
How Humbugs are Made
Making humbugs involves heating a mix of sugar, glycerine, color, and flavor (like peppermint) to a very hot temperature, about 145 degrees Celsius (293 degrees Fahrenheit). This hot mixture is then poured out. Workers stretch and fold it many, many times.
The cool stripes come from a smaller piece of colored mixture that is folded into the main batch. Finally, the whole mixture is rolled into a long, thin cylinder. This long cylinder is then sliced into many small humbug candies!
Similar Sweets
Bulls-eyes
A candy very similar to humbugs is called "bulls-eye." These sweets have red and white stripes, instead of black and white. They also taste like peppermint. In the UK, they are sometimes called "bullets" because they are similar in size to old musket balls.
Everton Mints
Another popular mint candy in the UK is the Everton mint. These are also striped black and white, but they have a chewy toffee center. You can find Everton mints all over the country, made by different companies.
