| Humbug | |
| Image Alt: | Traditional humbugs |
| Type: | Confectionery |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Creators: | --> |
| Main Ingredient: | Sugar |
Humbugs are a traditional hard-boiled sweet available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe and New Zealand. They are usually flavoured with peppermint[1] and striped in two different colours (often black and white). In Australia, the black-and-white-striped humbugs may be aniseed flavoured. Humbugs may be cylinders with rounded ends wrapped in a twist of cellophane, or more traditionally tetrahedral, loose in a bag.[1] Records of humbugs exist from as early as the 1820s, and they are referred to in the 1863 book Sylvia's Lovers as being a food from the North.[2] The etymology is unknown.
A mixture of sugar, glycerine, colour and flavouring is heated to . This mixture is then poured out, stretched and folded many times. The stripes originate from a smaller piece of coloured mixture which is folded into the main mixture. The mixture is finally rolled into a long, thin cylinder and sliced into segments.[3]
A similar sweet is "bulls-eye" which has red-and-white or black-and-white stripes. These are peppermint-flavoured and are also known as bullets in the UK as they are similar in size to smoothbore musket balls.