What are traditional sweets?

What are traditional sweets?

As a child born in the 1970’s, one of my favourite things my mum gave me was 10p and I could spend what I wanted in the shop. I always went to the sweets section and this was my favourite thing to do as a child growing up. I had love sweets! Still, do to this day but a lot less now lol. One of my fondest memories thanks to my dentist later… It gives me great pleasure to reminisce the sweets I had and write a blog on what I remembered as a child…

Here is a selection of the 1970s sweets that are traditional sweets. 

Drumstick Lolly Sweets

Original raspberry and milk flavour. It is a unique combination of a chew and a lollipop on a stick made by Swizzels. Drumstick lollies have been enjoyed for 60 years. The distinct chewy texture and dual flavours have made Drumstick a firm favourite with sweet lovers for generations.

Fizzy Cola Bottles

A sweet that children big and small absolutely love. A sour cola flavoured gum which is sugar-coated. Is shaped like a cola bottle of course.

Curly Wurly

Chewy and curly, wavy and wurly! A swirly ladder of golden caramel covered in Cadbury milk chocolate. Curly Wurly everyone’s favourite twisty treat.

Love Hearts

The making (or breaking) of many a childhood romance. Did you ever use them to send romantic messages to your secret sweetheart in the school playground? I did!

They are hard, tablet-shaped sweets in a variety of fruit flavours featuring a short, love-related message on one side of the sweet. 

Wham Bars

The Wham Bar is a true retro classic! This chewy bar is packed full of tangy, fizzy flavours and will give your teeth a good work out. This Wham Bar is the original and best. A space-age adventure of pink, sticky, chewy bar laced with tongue-fizzing green pieces. I remembered them as an excellent buy at only 10p a slab! These have recently been relaunched by Tangerine confectionary. A true British based sweet.

Sherbet Fountains

One of our favourite sweets ever, and such a classic! If you need your memory jogging, they consist of a yellow tube filled with white zingy sherbet. It is surrounded by a yellow and red paper wrapping which allows the liquorice to just poke out the top. The idea of the sweet is to dip the liquorice in the sherbet and eat. There are other ways to eat it. If the liquorice is hollow, you can suck it up, you can use your fingers, inhale it, you can add it to water.

They used to be in a cardboard tube and have the liquorice stick poking out, but the whole shebang is now encased in plastic.

Midget Gems 

Midget gems are chewy, firm sweets similar to wine gums but much harder. Midget Gems were extremely popular in the North of England. That I remembered very fondly and was very close to my dear heart.

At the time the sweet was re-branded under the Maynard’s banner, the black Midget Gems were changed from liquorice flavour to blackcurrant, but only in the bagged product. Those sold loose, from jars and boxes, remain liquorice.

A leading selling point for Midget Gems is that they were often sold loose from a jar or barrel. This made them inexpensive and helped bolster their popularity

Midget Gems are produced by a wide variety of other companies. Glisten Confectionery manufacture them under their Victoria brand, and in 2007 announced that they were removing all artificial colours and flavourings from the sweets. Many supermarkets and stores such as Asda, Tesco, Marks and Spencers and Sainsbury’s manufacture their own versions. 

Midget Gems are now sold in a wide variety of colours and flavours, adding to the choices consumers have when purchasing them.

Flying Saucer Sweets

Flying Saucer Sweets also are known as UFO Sweets. 

Flying Saucer sweets are an all-time favourite which dates back to the 1960s. Appleton Sweets stock a range of wholesale flying saucer sweets in various quantities and flavours. The sweets are made with rice paper which is shaped like discs and filled with sherbet. A fizzy, fruity flavour sherbet in a colourful wafer shell. In 2004 they were named as the most popular sweet with their tasty edible rice coating and sour sherbet flavours. They are a real blast from the past and their fizzy, sour sherbet makes them an exciting choice of sweet. Flying Saucers are a fantastic choice for a gift or as an exciting treat for children and are popular at all times of the year.

They remain a popular sweet in Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Gobstoppers

This lead to no introduction. Ah, the famous Gobstoppers! Good old fashioned gobstoppers. Layer after layer of hard suckable sweet – and no bubblegum centre in sight! A traditional favourite which just goes on and on… Too big to put in the mouth and too big to talk!

They are usually round and usually range from 1 to 3 cm across; though gobstoppers can be up to 8 cm in diameter.

The word gobstopper comes from the word “gob”, which is slang in the United Kingdom and Ireland for the mouth. … Gobstoppers are too hard to bite without risking dental damage. Gobstoppers have been sold in traditional sweet shops for at least a century, often sold by weight from jars.

White Mice

A popular traditional sweet. Creamy, white chocolate flavour, candy mice. About an inch long, they make the perfect mouthful. They’re also pink ones too! Some are bigger in size too.

These will bring back so many great memories from when you were younger. It is now expected that every children’s party will have them everywhere. 

Image: Eva Wilcock-unsplash

Image: Eva Wilcock-unsplash

Caramac is Back!

Caramac is Back!

Caramac is a 30g smooth, sweet and creamy caramel flavoured bar with no artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. It was originally created by Mackintosh’s and since its launch over 50 years ago in 1959.

The name is a combination of ‘Caramel’ and ‘Mackintosh’ and was determined through a competition held by the management team at Mackintosh’s for their workers at the factory in Norwich. Since its launch Caramac has been proudly produced in the UK, initially, it was produced at the Mackintosh’s factory in Norwich, then in 1996 production moved to Newcastle where the bar still continues to be manufactured to this day. It has a unique flavour and texture because Caramac is cocoa and gluten-free! It continues to be packaged in its retro red and yellow wrappers, keeping its well-loved well-loved brand.

They are selling these as a single bar or 3 in a pack. Caramac has also produced the Giant Buttons 110g Sharing Bag!

Bons Bons Sweets

Bons Bons Sweets

Bon Bons really are a classic sweet. In fact, they date back to 17th century France, so they’ve been a popular treat for a long time. There are lots of different kinds of sweets that are called Bon Bons, but generally the British variety is a small, chewy sweet, coated with a thick layer of sugary dusting.

Ken Domik from KBDProductionsTV explains Bons Bons in the video below.