As you might know, I've always been fascinated by traditional sweets making. Probably because our house is Victorian I wanted to dive a little deeper into the history of Victorian sweets. I've also been making my own traditional pulled sweets at home for some time and enjoying the challenge of working out more complicated confectionery recipes.
In Victorian times, everything seemed possible! It was the time for great inventions, connecting the whole countries with new amazing technology (called the steam railways!) and also time for everything proper!
While the Victorian era began in 1837 with chocolate still being a gritty liquid drink, by its end in 1901, the invention of the solid milk chocolate bar had turned it into Britain's favourite affordable treat.
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Sweets for all: The Victorian confectionery revolution
Each area of life seems to have had an invention or two that improved what was already there. This was no different to traditional sweets making.
New machines and equipment made the production of sweets much cheaper and available to a wider audience. Suddenly, sweets were becoming a treat for more people than ever before.
Historically sweets and confectionery was hand-made luxury available only to kings, queens and wealthy aristocrats. The industrial revolution brought about many technological advances; lowering prices for refined sugar and allowing for factory produced sweets and confectionary. Because of these changes, sweets were no longer luxurious items for the super rich, but available to all.
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The invention of the first milk chocolate bar
Victorian times were also a great time for inventions in the sweets industry. Chocolate has certainly come a long way since it was first discovered by the Maya people.
The first dark or plain chocolate bar was made in 1847, but it took nearly another 30 years before milk chocolate bar was invented. As you might know, chocolate doesn't really like water, it splits, makes the chocolate go grey and you can't really temper it and mould it.
The chocolate manufacturers were first trying to add pure milk to chocolate mass to create milk chocolate. And whilst this sounds like a great idea in principle, it didn't work, for all those reasons mentioned above.
It wasn't until 1875, when a very clever chocolatier thought about swapping the liquid milk for dried powdered milk and hey, presto - milk chocolate bar was born!
Milk chocolate become of the most popular types of chocolates and especially Belgian chocolateriers become famous for wonderfully smooth milk chocolate.
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The Victorian Invention Boom in Sweets & Confectionery
A lot of modern sweets, were invented in Victorian times. This was because sugar, which was imported from West Indies become much cheaper. Many of these sweets were made possible by the invention and use of steam-powered machines. Before the Victorian era, pulling toffee or grinding cocoa was back-breaking work done by hand. The "boom" happened because machines could suddenly do the work of fifty people!
Turkish Delight (1777): Although invented much earlier, it only became a massive hit in Europe during the 1800s.
Toffee (Early 19th Century): As sugar prices dropped, this simple mix of butter and sugar became a British household favourite.
Hard Boiled Sweets (Early 19th Century): Early versions were often flavoured with lemon or peppermint and sold by chemists.
Coconut Ice (Mid-to-late 1900s): This pink and white striped treat became popular because coconut started being imported in large amounts from the edges of the British Empire.
Acid Drops (Mid-1800s): Don't worry—they weren't actually dangerous! They were sharp, sour, lemon-flavoured boiled sweets that were very popular with children who liked a "tangy" taste.
Seaside rock appeared in the late 19th century, and it was in the 19th century that people began to eat boiled sweets; as sugar became cheaper a wide variety of boiled sweets were developed.
Bonbons (1800s): While originally French, the Victorians made "Toffee Bonbons" famous. These were chewy toffee circles dusted in a thick layer of powdered sugar.
Pear Drops (Early 1900s): These are one of the most famous British "boiled sweets." They were popular because of their bright red and yellow colours and their strong, fruity smell.
Humbugs (1820s): These iconic striped mints were a staple in every sweet shop jar throughout the Victorian era.
Edinburgh Rock (Mid-19th Century): Invented by Alexander Ferguson (known as "Sweetie Sandy"), this is very different from seaside rock. It is soft, crumbly, and melt-in-the-mouth. He supposedly discovered it by accident after leaving a batch of sweets in a drawer for months and finding they had changed texture!
Necco Wafers (1847): These are the oldest branded "roll" of sweets. They were made using a lozenge-cutting machine invented by Oliver Chase. They became a favourite because they were easy to carry and didn't melt.
The "Tom Smith" Cracker (1847): While not a sweet itself, the Christmas Cracker was invented by a Victorian sweet maker! He saw French "bonbons" wrapped in paper and decided to add a "snap" and a small toy to make them more exciting for British families.
Marshmallows (1850): These were originally made using the sap of the marshmallow plant before being mass-produced with sugar.
Barley Sugar (Popularised in the 1850s): This is one of the oldest hard sweets. Victorians loved it because it was clear, looked like amber, and was often used to soothe a sore throat.
Cream-Centred Sweets (1851): First shown at the Great Exhibition, these "French-style" treats were the first time anyone managed to put a soft centre inside a hard shell.
Jelly Babies (1864): These were actually invented by an Austrian confectioner in Lancashire who was trying to make a mould for jelly bears. The bears looked more like tiny infants, so they were originally sold as "Unclaimed Babies." It wasn't until after the Victorian era that they got the friendlier name we use today.
Coltsfoot Rock (1860s): Invented in Lancashire, this is a hard, brittle sweet flavoured with the coltsfoot plant. It was originally sold as a "health sweet" to help with a cough.
Fry's Chocolate Cream (1866): This is the oldest mass-produced chocolate bar in the world! It has a plain chocolate outside and a white, sugary fondant centre. You can still buy it in British shops today.
Kendal Mint Cake (1869): This famous peppermint bar was accidentally created when a batch of glacier mints went wrong!
Fruit Pastilles (1881): These were created by Rowntree's and were one of the first "gummy" sweets to become a national favourite.
Fudge (1880s): This creamy treat was actually invented in the USA before crossing the Atlantic to British shops.
Jelly Beans & Peanut Brittle (Late 19th Century): Both of these became popular as snack-style sweets toward the end of the era.
Wine Gums (1893): These were aimed at adults, which is why they have alcohol-inspired names, even though they contain no wine at all.
Sherbet Lemons (Late 19th Century): These were a huge success after chemists figured out how to make a powder that "fizzed" on the tongue using bicarbonate of soda.
Candy Floss (1897): Originally called "Fairy Floss," this spun-sugar treat was a marvel of new Victorian technology.
Chocolate Limes (Late 1900s): These were a clever Victorian invention that combined a sharp, lime-flavoured hard shell with a soft chocolate centre.
Pontefract Cakes (Mass-produced in the 1800s): While the recipe is very old, it was in the Victorian era that they started being stamped by hand with the famous "castle" logo in Yorkshire factories. Liquorice was originally used as a medicine but Pontefract cakes, which were originally invented in the early 17th century started to be popular in Victorian times, when people began to eat it as a sweets.
Lettered Rock (1887): While "Fair Rock" had been around for a while, a man named Ben Bullock invented the clever way to put letters all the way through a stick of seaside rock. The first batch actually spelled out "Whoa Emma," which was a popular song at the time!
Candy Corn (1880): Although very popular in America today, this tri-coloured treat was invented by the Wunderle Candy Company in the late Victorian years. It was originally called "Chicken Feed" because it looked like kernels of corn.
Liquorice Allsorts (1899): These were created by accident when a salesman dropped his tray of samples, creating a colourful mix that the customer loved!
Cough Candy (Mid-1800s): This was a hard-boiled sweet flavoured with herbs like aniseed and herbal extracts. Like many Victorian treats, it sat right on the line between being a "medicine" and a "sweet."
Sherbet Lemons: These were a huge hit in the late 19th century. English chemists found a way to mix bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid to make a powder that "fizzed" on the tongue.
Aniseed Balls: These are some of the oldest sweets. Victorians loved them because aniseed was thought to help with digestion.
Everton Mints: Famous for their black-and-white stripes, these mints became popular in the late 1800s (and are still linked to Everton Football Club today!).
Sugar Plums: These weren't actually made of plums! They were small, hard circles of sugar, often with a seed or a nut in the middle.
The Sugar Mouse: No Victorian Christmas was complete without a sugar mouse with a string tail. They were made of "pink sugar" (a bit like the inside of a peppermint cream).
Marzipan Fruits: Victorians loved to show off. Wealthy families would buy marzipan (almond paste) that was painted with food dye to look exactly like tiny apples, pears, and oranges.
Medicated Lozenges: We now call these "cough drops." In Victorian times, things like Victory V (invented in 1864) were sold as sweets but contained strong liquorice and warming spices to help people working in cold factories.
Tablet: In Scotland, this became very popular. It is like fudge but has a "grainy" texture that melts on the tongue. It was a staple of Victorian tea times.
Fry's Turkish Delight (1914 - Note:): While the bar was released just after the Victorian era, the "Fry" family spent the late 1800s perfecting the recipe for chocolate-covered treats.
Cadbury's Dairy Milk (1905 - Note:): Although launched four years after Queen Victoria died, it was the "Grand Finale" of Victorian research. It was created to beat the Swiss chocolate makers who had invented milk chocolate in 1875.
The "Sugar Pig": In the late 1800s, pink sugar pigs were a traditional Christmas treat. They were made of solid, grainy sugar (like fudge but harder) and were a symbol of good luck for the New Year.
Brandy Balls: These were dark, spicy, boiled sweets. Despite the name, they didn't usually have real brandy in them, but the strong ginger and peppermint flavours made your throat feel warm, just like a shot of brandy!
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The Great Exhibition in London (1851) & Triumph of Victorian sweets inventions
The Great Exhibition of 1851, held in the magnificent "Crystal Palace" in London, was a massive turning point for the British sweet industry.
Hard boiled sweets with soft centre fillings
It was the first time that many ordinary people saw "French-style" confectionery, which featured amazing soft cream centres hidden inside hard sugar shells. Before this event, nobody in Britain had mastered the technology to put a liquid or creamy filling inside a boiled sweet.
The exhibition also included incredible new steam-powered machinery that could boil sugar to the perfect temperature and shape it into thousands of identical pieces.
The largest sugar trophy ever made
One of the most famous displays was a giant trophy made entirely from 700 pounds of solid sugar, proving to the world that Britain was now a leader in the "Science of Sweets." This event turned confectionery from a simple handmade craft into a modern, high-tech industry that everyone wanted to be a part of.
The Chocolate from around the world
One of the most impressive displays was a massive collection of chocolate from all over the world. Until then, most people had only seen the dark, gritty chocolate used for drinks. At the exhibition, manufacturers showed off fancy chocolate sculptures and the very first "eating chocolate" bars. It was here that people realised chocolate could be a beautiful art form, not just something you stirred into a cup of hot water.
The Mechanical "Sweetie" Maker
A highlight for many was seeing the new "Lozenges Machine." Before this, every single sweet had to be cut and shaped by hand. Visitors were fascinated by a machine that could roll out a sheet of sugar paste and punch out hundreds of perfectly round sweets every minute. It was this invention that paved the way for famous brands like Necco Wafers and eventually "Love Hearts."
Exotic Fruit Preserves
Because the exhibition celebrated the British Empire, people were introduced to sweets made with "exotic" ingredients they had never tasted before. There were displays of crystalised ginger from India and preserved pineapples from the West Indies. These were seen as the height of luxury, and soon after the exhibition, sweet makers began using these tropical flavours to create new types of boiled sweets and fondants.
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Unusual sweet flavours popular in Victorian times
While we usually choose strawberry or chocolate today, Victorian children had very different tastes! Because many sweets started out as medicines sold by chemists, people were used to floral and herbal flavours. Rose and Violet lozenges were incredibly popular; they were made from real flower oils and sugar to keep your breath smelling sweet.
Some sweets even tasted like Musk, which has a very strong, earthy scent often found in perfume. You could also find Clove Rocks and Aniseed Balls, which had a spicy, medicinal kick. Even though these flavours might seem strange to us now, for a Victorian child, the smell of lavender or peppermint was the ultimate sign of a high-quality treat.
The most surprising invention of Victorian times - the Chewing gum (1848)
Another great Victorian Sweets invention was chewing gum. I was definitely surprised by that, because somehow I always thought that chewing gum is such a modern type of sweet. Anyway, chewing gum from trees was common across the world for centuries, but chewing gum as we know it was not made commercially until 1848.
There is a long history of people using various types of wood and natural sap from trees that could be chewed. For example, 5000 years ago, in the Neolithic period, people chewed wood, possibly because they believed it had some medicinal properties.
In ancient Greece, people chewed mastiche, a derived-product of mastic trees. People used it because it tasted good and also because it said to have curative properties (as reported by Dioscorides).
In the middle ages, the Sultan's harem used to chew mastic as breath freshener, for its cosmetic and healing properties.
Later on, American Indians chewed resin from spruce trees and the first settlers of New England in America soon realised it's potential. American named John B. Curtisand started to sell the first chewing-gum in 1848 as "The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum." And apparently, to this date, it is still being sold!
The Victorian "Gum" Revolution
By the 1850s, inventors began using paraffin wax instead of tree sap because it was smoother to chew. However, the real "modern" gum arrived in 1869. An inventor named Thomas Adams tried to use "chicle" (a rubbery sap from Mexico) to make car tyres. It didn't work for tyres, but he realised it made a fantastic, stretchy chewing gum!
Because British Victorians were very worried about "proper" behaviour and hygiene, chewing gum became very popular amongst all classes. It was a quick way to hide the smell of tobacco or strong food and if was of course seen as a high-tech, exciting product from the "New World" (America).
The Curious Flavours of Victorian Gum
When chewing gum first arrived in shops, the flavours were much stronger and more unusual than the minty bubbles we have today.
Because Victorians were already fond of herbal medicines, the very first gums often tasted like Black Liquorice or Wintergreen, which had a sharp, medicinal tang.
One of the most famous early brands was called "Black Jack," which was launched in the late 1800s and was the first flavoured gum to be sold in sticks.
Another big favourite was Tutti-Frutti, which was the first gum ever sold in a vending machine on the New York subway in 1888. This "fruit salad" flavour was an instant hit with Victorian teenagers who wanted something sweet and exciting that lasted longer than a standard boiled sweet.
The "Easter Egg" Invention (1873)
The first hollow chocolate Easter Egg was made by J.S. Fry & Sons in 1873. Before this, eggs were made of solid sugar or wood. The Victorians used their new machinery and chocolate moulds to make the chocolate thin enough to be hollow, allowing them to hide sweets inside!
The traditional set up of a Victorian Sweets Shop
One thing I'd love to do is to be able to walk in to original Victorian sweets shop. As sweets become cheaper, shop keepers started to stock more sweet treats and you could find shops dedicated to just sweets.
Just imagine all those tall jars filled with different types of sweets and a smiling shop keeper measuring out a quarter of a pound of your favourite sweets.
Traditional Victorian Sweets would include Fudge, Marzipan, Liquorice Allsorts, Jelly Babies, Brandy Balls, Clove Rocks, Pear Drops, Coconut Ice, Marshmallows, Bonbons, Chocolate Limes, Toffee or Wine Gums.
There were also many sweets - especially in Britain, such as rose or violet lozenges, Lime Fruit, Twisted Barley Sugar, Strawberry Drops, Damson Drops, Chocolate Drops, Caramels or Chocolate Kisses. I'm always inspired by old-fashioned names for chocolate businesses when I'm helping my students to choose their own name for their new chocolate ventures.
Sweets were weighted by shop assistants and sold in paper bags or cones. Sometimes you could buy chocolates in pretty boxes, which were apparently padded with cotton wool to protect the chocolate inside!
In many traditional sweets shops, you could find a large tray of home-made toffee on the counter. The shopkeeper would break it up with a small hammer and what looked like a pair of scissors. Children would often buy just an ounce of sweets at the time. That's about 30 grams, which doesn't sound like a lot.
EASY TRADITIONAL SWEETS RECIPES
The birth of "Fancy" confectionery tins
This was the first time people saw beautifully decorated metal tins for sweets. Before this, you just got a plain paper bag. These tins were so pretty that Victorian families would keep them for years to store sewing needles or buttons.
The street sellers & how were sweets sold before sweet shops opened
Before every town had a fancy sweet shop with glass jars, sweets were sold by street sellers.
In Scotland and Northern England, they were often called "Sweetie Wives." These were older women who made tablet or treacle toffee in their own kitchens and sold it from baskets on street corners.
Just like the Muffin Man, some sweet sellers would ring a bell and carry a wooden tray of "Rock Sticks" or "Penny Toffees" through the streets at tea time.
EASY TRADITIONAL SWEETS RECIPES
A trip to the seaside & sweets as souvenirs in Victorian times
Did you know that the Victorians actually invented the "holiday" as we know it today? Before the 1800s, most people lived and died within a few miles of their birthplace.
But when steam trains arrived, the tracks acted like a giant key, unlocking the rest of the country! Suddenly, for just a few pennies, a family from a smoky city could spend a day at the seaside or a weekend in the mountains.
Because travelling was such a big deal, people wanted a way to prove they had actually been somewhere exciting. They wanted a trophy to take home, but postcards weren't really a thing yet. Instead, they turned to sweets! Buying a specific treat became a way to say, "I've been to the beach!"
Seaside Rock was the the ultimate holiday souvenir. In the late 1800s, confectioners figured out how to pull and stretch sugar so that the name of the town—like Blackpool or Brighton—ran all the way through the middle. Taking a stick of "lettered rock" back to your neighbours was the Victorian version of posting a holiday photo on social media!
Kendal Mint Cake: If you were lucky enough to visit the Lake District, you didn't buy a stick of rock; you bought a bar of this super-strong, peppermint-flavoured sugar. It was famous for being "energy food" for hikers. Bringing a bar home proved you had been out exploring the wild, windy hills of Northern England.
Whitby Lucky Ducks: In coastal towns like Whitby, local sweet shops created unique shapes—like little glass-like sugar ducks—that you could only find in that specific town.
Yorkshire: Pontefract Cakes - While liquorice had been grown in Pontefract since the 1600s, it was the Victorians who turned it into a famous souvenir. These are small, soft, black discs of liquorice. What made them unique was the official stamp—traditionally, a worker would hand-press each sweet with an image of Pontefract Castle. Bringing a bag of these back to London or Manchester was proof you had visited the industrial heart of Yorkshire.
Scotland: Edinburgh Rock - This is very different from the hard "Seaside Rock" found in England. Invented in the mid-19th century by Alexander Ferguson, Edinburgh Rock is soft, colourful, and crumbly. It was sold in elegant tins, making it the perfect gift to bring home from a trip to the Scottish capital. Victorians loved it because it was seen as a "refined" sweet that wouldn't break your teeth!
Wales: Welsh Taffy (Slab Toffee) - In Welsh seaside towns like Llandudno or Rhyl, "Taffy" (the Welsh word for toffee) was the star of the show. It was often sold in giant, thick slabs that the shopkeeper would break apart with a brass hammer. It was usually flavoured with rich treacle or salted butter. Because it was so heavy and long-lasting, it was the ideal treat to survive a long train journey back to the valleys.
Devon and Cornwall: Clotted Cream Toffee - As the railway reached the South West of England in the late 1800s, "Cream Teas" became a holiday obsession. Confectioners realized they could preserve the taste of the coast by mixing local clotted cream into their toffee recipes. These were sold in little wooden boxes or tins decorated with pictures of cows and rolling green hills, serving as a creamy reminder of the Devon sunshine.
How was sugar substituted in sweets during Victorian times
I love the idea that Victorians believed that sugar was healthy! Victorian advertising for sweets often referred to them as a wholesome!
The new found love for sweets had also a bit of a shady side to it! Although sugar become much more affordable in Victorian times, it didn't stop sweets shopkeepers and victorian sweets producers to make their products even cheaper - but for themselves!
Sweets which were made from white sugar were often sold with plaster of Paris added in. Roasted almonds were often substituted with kernels of various fruits, such as peaches, apricots and nectarines.
Apparently, in London, kitchen maids serving in wealthy families were known for collecting fruit kernels from their kitchens and selling them on to sweets shops, making a little extra pocket money at the same time!
And it apparently didn't stop there! Other ingredients that were added to Victorian sweets included lime, alum, bullock's blood, charcoal or acetate of soda.
Oxide of leads was also mixed with the small proportions of sugar and used in making sweets like sugar plums. I guess that was because of the colour! Lead is of course fairly poisonous, but nobody would know when children would be sucking on the sugar plums, only having a slight blue tongs!
Because so many people were getting ill, the government had to step in. This led to the famous Adulteration of Food Act 1860, the first major British law designed to stop shops from selling "faked" or poisonous food. It was a turning point in history that finally made the local sweet shop a safe place for children to spend their pocket money.
This blog post was originally written on 16 July 2017 and last updated on 29 January 2026
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