Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories: bakers' confections and sugar confections. The occupation of confectioner encompasses the categories of cooking performed by both the French patissier (pastry chef) and the confiseur (sugar worker).
Bakers' confectionery, also called flour confections, includes principally sweet pastries, cakes, and similar baked goods. Baker's confectionery excludes everyday breads, and thus is a subset of products produced by a baker.
Sugar confectionery includes candies (also called sweets, short for sweetmeats, in many English-speaking countries), candied nuts, chocolates, chewing gum, bubble gum, pastillage, and other confections that are made primarily of sugar. In some cases, chocolate confections (confections made of chocolate) are treated as a separate category, as are sugar-free versions of sugar confections. The words candy (Canada & US), sweets (UK, Ireland, and others), and lollies (Australia and New Zealand) are common words for some of the most popular varieties of sugar confectionery.
The confectionery industry also includes specialized training schools and extensive historical records. Traditional confectionery goes back to ancient times and continued to be eaten through the Middle Ages and into the modern era.
History
Before sugar was readily available in the ancient western world, confectionery was based on honey. Honey was used in Ancient China, Ancient India, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome to coat fruits and flowers to preserve them or to create sweetmeats. Between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, the Persians, followed by the Greeks, made contact with the Indian subcontinent and its "reeds that produce honey without bees". They adopted and then spread sugar and sugarcane agriculture. Sugarcane is indigenous to tropical Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
In the early history of sugar usage in Europe, it was initially the apothecary who had the most important role in the production of sugar-based preparations. Medieval European physicians learned the medicinal uses of the material from the Arabs and Byzantine Greeks. One Middle Eastern remedy for rheums and fevers were little, twisted sticks of pulled sugar called in Arabic or . These became known in England as alphenics, or more commonly as penidia, penids, pennet or pan sugar. They were the precursors of barley sugar and modern cough drops. In 1390, the Earl of Derby paid "two shillings for two pounds of penydes."
As the non-medicinal applications of sugar developed, the comfitmaker, or confectioner gradually came into being as a separate trade. In the late medieval period the words confyt, comfect or cumfitt were generic terms for all kinds of sweetmeats made from fruits, roots, or flowers preserved with sugar. By the 16th century, a cumfit was more specifically a seed, nut or small piece of spice enclosed in a round or ovoid mass of sugar. The production of comfits was a core skill of the early confectioner, who was known more commonly in 16th and 17th century England as a comfitmaker. Reflecting their original medicinal purpose, however, comfits were also produced by apothecaries and directions on how to make them appear in dispensatories as well as cookery texts. An early medieval Latin name for an apothecary was , and it was in this sort of sugar work that the activities of the two trades overlapped and that the word "confectionery" originated.
In the cuisine of the Late Ottoman Empire diverse cosmopolitan cultural influences were reflected in published recipes such as European-style molded jellies flavored with cordials. In Europe, Ottoman confections (especially "lumps of delight" (Turkish delight) became very fashionable among European and British high society. An important study of Ottoman confectionery called Conditorei des Orients was published by the royal confectioner Friedrich Unger in 1838.
The first confectionery in Manchester, England was opened by Elizabeth Raffald who had worked six years in domestic service as a housekeeper.