History of Candy Canes

donna

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Legend has it that in 1670 the choirmaster of the Cologne Cathedral gave sugar sticks to the young singers to keep them quiet during the long living Creche Ceremony. He had the candies bent into shepherd's crooks. The symbol of the shepherd's crook is an ancient one which represents the humble shepherds who were the first to worship Christ.

In 1847 August Imgard, a German-Swedish immigrant who lived in Wooster, Ohio decorated a small blue spruce with paper ornaments and candy canes.

It wasn't until the turn of the 19th century that the red and white stripes and peppermint flavors became the candy cane. The body of the cane is white which represents the life that is pure. The broad red stripe is symbolic of the Lord's sacrifice for man.

In the 1920s, Bob McCormack began making candy canes as special treats for his children, friends and local shopkeepers in Albany, Georgie. It was very laborous as he had to pull, twist, cut and bend the candy by hand. He could only do them locally.

In the 1950s, Bob's bother-in-law, Gregory Keller who was a Catholic priest, invented a machine to automate candy cane production. With this machine and packaging innovations, the younger McCormacks made it possible to sell canes on a large scale that transformed Bob's Candies Inc. into the largest producer of candy canes in the world.

Trivia on Candy Canes:

For 200 years the candy cane only came in the color white.

National Candy Cane Day is celebrated December 26th in U.S.

Each year 1.76 billion candy canes are made. It is enough to stretch from Santa Claus, In. to North Pole, Arkansas and back again 32 times.

From http://www.ideafinder.com/features/everwonder/won-candycane.htm
 
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Candy Cane Fudge Recipe

2 (10 ounce) packages of vanilla baking chips
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1 1/2 cups crushed candy canes
1 dash red or green food coloring

1. Line an 8 inch baking pan with aluminum foil, and grease the foil.
2. Combine the vanilla chips and sweetened condensed milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir frequently until almost melted, remove from heat and continue to stir until smooth. When chips are completely melted, stir in the peppermint extract, food coloring and candy canes.
3. Spread evenly in the bottom of the prepared pan. Chill for 2 hours and then cut into pieces.
 
I remembered reading it not long ago. :D

It's a common phenomenon... if there's something unknown, such as "why is a candy cane shaped like a candy cane?" the temptation is strong to come up with a plausible explanation. The idea gets told to a few more people, and then, before you know it, it's being cited as fact. (The Internet speeds this process up enormously... fortunately, it also allows rapid dissemination of fact-checking...)
 
Another classic Christmas recipe using Candy Canes is Peppermint Bark.

12 ounces (about 2 cups) dark chocolate, chopped or chocolate chips
12 ounces ( about 2 cups) white chocolate, chopped or white chocolate chips
8 peppermint candy canes

1. unwrap the candy canes and place them in a food processor. Pulse on/off several times for 6 to 10 seconds each, until the canes have been crushed into small pieces. Alternately, place the candy canes in a large Ziploc bag and seal tightly. Use a rolling pin to roll/smash the candy canes until they are the size you desire.
2. Prepare a cookie sheet by covering it with smooth aluminum foil.
3. Melt or temper the dark chocolate. Pour the chocolate onto the cookie sheet and use an offset spatula or knife to spread it to an even thickness, a little more than 1/8 inch thick. The chocolate does not have to reach all sides of the sheet, as it will be broken up later. Place the tray in the refrigerator to firm up while you prepare the white chocolate.
4. While the dark chocolate hardens, melt or temper the white chocolate. Stir in most of the candy cane bits, reserving about a quarter of the mixture to put on top.
5. Remove the tray from the refrigerator and spread the white chocolate in an even layer over the dark chocolate.
6. While the white chocolate is still wet, sprinkle the remaining candy cane pieces over the entire surface evenly. Press down very slightly to ensure they stick. Place the tray back in the refrigerator to firm up for 30 minutes.
7. Once the peppermint bark is completely set, break into small, uneven pieces by hand.
 
In the 1920s, Bob McCormack began making candy canes as special treats for his children, friends and local shopkeepers in Albany, Georgie. It was very laborous as he had to pull, twist, cut and bend the candy by hand. He could only do them locally.

In the 1950s, Bob's bother-in-law, Gregory Keller who was a Catholic priest, invented a machine to automate candy cane production. With this machine and packaging innovations, the younger McCormacks made it possible to sell canes on a large scale that transformed Bob's Candies Inc. into the largest producer of candy canes in the world.

Unfortunately, Bob's is no more. Oh it exists as a brand name, but the grandson sold it off in 2005 and the new owners promptly shut down the Albany plant--an example of the worst aspects of private business. The current Bob's branded product is inferior to the old stuff.
 
Peppermint candy cupcakes are fun and easy! You take a regular white cake mix, dye half red. Substitute peppermint extract for vanilla extract. Then layer white/red/white/red in the cupcake papers. Swirl it a bit with a toothpick to get the candy cane look - sort of. Then make a regular butter cream frosting, using more peppermint extract. Comes out minty and pretty!
 
I'll have to look, but not sure - the recipes before 1900 would be likely to be recipes using white candy canes? I'd end up looking through all the wrong, old books and also gain 10 pounds by being distracted and making something dreadful.
 
Here is recipe for Peppermint Candy Canes from "The White House Cook Book" by Hugo Ziemann, Steward of the White House, and Mrs. F.L. Gillette, a celebrated 19th Century author. It was published in 1923 in New York.

"One pound of granulated sugar, one cupful of water, a quarter of a cupful of vinegar or half a teaspoonful of cream of tartar, one small tablespoonful of glycerine. Flavour with vanilla, rose, lemon, or peppermint.

Boil all except the flavouring, without stirring, twenty minutes or half an hour, or until crisp when dropped in water. Just before pouring upon greased platters to cool, add half a teaspoonful of baking soda.

After pouring upon platters to cool, pour two teaspoonfuls of flavouring over the top. When partly cool, pull it until very white. Draw it into sticks the size you wish, and cut off with shears into short sticks or kiss-shaped drops.

The candy may be colored if desired, and the sticks shaped to make homemade candy canes for Christmas. Two thin sticks, one colored red and one left white, when twisted together and rolled will make a striped candy cane."
 
From: The Complete Confectioner, Pastry Cook, and Baker by Eleanor Parker, 1849

Bath Pipe. --Eight pounds of sugar, twelve ounces of liquorice. Warm the liquorice and cut it in thin slices, dissolve it in one quart of boiling water, stir it well to assist the solution; let it settle, when dissolved, to allow any impurities or bits of copper which are often found in it to fall down; pour it off free from the sediment; dissolve the gum in the clear part, and mix into a paste as for lozenges. Roll out a piece with your hand in a round form; finish rolling it with a long flat piece of wood, until it is about the size of the largest end of the stem of a tobacco-pipe. Dry them in the stove as lozenges. These may be also flavoured with anise-seed by adding a few drops of the oil, or with catechu or violets by adding the powders of orris-root or catechu.


Peppermint or other Pipes. --Any of the pastes for lozenges may be formed into pipes by rolling it out as directed for Bath pipes. They are occasionally striped with blue green, and yellow, by making strips with liquid colour on the paste and twisting before you roll it out with the board.

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...and just in case you cared for more....
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Peppermint Lozenges, No. 1. --Take double-refined loaf sugar, pound and sift it through a lawn sieve; make a bay with the sugar on a marble slab, into which pour some dissolved gum, and mix it into a paste as you would dough, flavouring the mass with oil of peppermint. One ounce of this is sufficient for forty pounds of lozenges. Some persons prefer mixing their gum and sugar together at first in a mortar; but as it is indifferent which way is pursued, that may be followed which is most convenient. Roll out the paste on a marble slab until it is about the eighth of an inch in thickness, using starch powder to dust it with, to prevent its sticking to the slab and pin. Before cutting them out, strew or dust over the surface with powder mixed with lawned sugar, and rub it over with the heel of your hand, which gives it a smooth face. This operation is termed "facing up." Brush this off, and again dust the surface with starch powder, cut them out, and place in wooden trays. Put them in the hot closet to dry. Note.--All lozenges are finished in the same manner.

Peppermint Lozenges, No. 2. --These are made as No. 1, adding a little starch-powder or prepared plaster as for gum paste to the paste, instead of using all sugar.

Peppermint Lozenges, Nos. 3 and 4. --Proceed in the same manner as for No. 2, using for each, more starch powder in proportion. Use smaller cutters, and let the paste be rolled thicker.

Transparent Mint Lozenges, No. 5. --These are made from loaf sugar in coarse powder, the finest having been taken out by sifting it through a lawn sieve. Mix it into a paste with dissolved gum Arabic and a little lemon juice. Flavour with oil of peppermint. Finish as for No. 1.

Superfine Transparent Mint Lozenges. --The sugar for these must be in coarser grains. Pass the sugar through a coarse hair sieve. Separate the finest by sifting it through a moderately fine hair sieve. Mix and flavour as the others.
Note.--The coarser the grains of sugar, the more transparent the lozenges. The finer particles of sugar being mixed with it, destroy their transparency. The solution of gum should be thicker in proportion as the sugar is coarse.
 
Good find, Mark. The history is a legend, but right about Bob McCormack and his family business. It just one of the traditions of Christmas. I been eating Candy Canes since I was little. We have always hung them from the Christmas Tree as decorations.
We used to hang them from the tree, as well. Now, we have a labrador retriever.
 
When I was a paperboy (Yes, I indulged in this childhood labor :D ) one year, I got little candy canes and passed them out to all my customers, that had this story printed on the wrappers. I got extra tips that year :tongue:
 
Candy Cane Fudge Recipe

2 (10 ounce) packages of vanilla baking chips
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1 1/2 cups crushed candy canes
1 dash red or green food coloring

1. Line an 8 inch baking pan with aluminum foil, and grease the foil.
2. Combine the vanilla chips and sweetened condensed milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir frequently until almost melted, remove from heat and continue to stir until smooth. When chips are completely melted, stir in the peppermint extract, food coloring and candy canes.
3. Spread evenly in the bottom of the prepared pan. Chill for 2 hours and then cut into pieces.

Gosh that sounds good, make take it to the family gathering! Thanks Donna!
 
Legend has it that in 1670 the choirmaster of the Cologne Cathedral gave sugar sticks to the young singers to keep them quiet during the long living Creche Ceremony. He had the candies bent into shepherd's crooks. The symbol of the shepherd's crook is an ancient one which represents the humble shepherds who were the first to worship Christ.

In 1847 August Imgard, a German-Swedish immigrant who lived in Wooster, Ohio decorated a small blue spruce with paper ornaments and candy canes.

It wasn't until the turn of the 19th century that the red and white stripes and peppermint flavors became the candy cane. The body of the cane is white which represents the life that is pure. The broad red stripe is symbolic of the Lord's sacrifice for man.

In the 1920s, Bob McCormack began making candy canes as special treats for his children, friends and local shopkeepers in Albany, Georgie. It was very laborous as he had to pull, twist, cut and bend the candy by hand. He could only do them locally.

In the 1950s, Bob's bother-in-law, Gregory Keller who was a Catholic priest, invented a machine to automate candy cane production. With this machine and packaging innovations, the younger McCormacks made it possible to sell canes on a large scale that transformed Bob's Candies Inc. into the largest producer of candy canes in the world.

Trivia on Candy Canes:

For 200 years the candy cane only came in the color white.

National Candy Cane Day is celebrated December 26th in U.S.

Each year 1.76 billion candy canes are made. It is enough to stretch from Santa Claus, In. to North Pole, Arkansas and back again 32 times.

From http://www.ideafinder.com/features/everwonder/won-candycane.htm
 
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