Confectionery

[4] Bakers' confectionery, also called flour confections, includes principally sweet pastries, cakes, and similar baked goods.

The occupation of confectioner encompasses the categories of cooking performed by both the French patissier (pastry chef) and the confiseur (sugar worker).

[7] Traditional confectionery goes back to ancient times and continued to be eaten through the Middle Ages and into the modern era.

The oldest recorded use of the word confectionery discovered so far by the Oxford English Dictionary is by Richard Jonas in 1540, who spelled or misspelled it as "confection nere" in a passage "Ambre, muske, frankencense, gallia muscata and confection nere", thus in the sense of "things made or sold by a confectioner".

[10] 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".

[12][13][14] 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.

[citation needed]" 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.

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 confectionarius, and it was in this sort of sugar work that the activities of the two trades overlapped and that the word "confectionery" originated.

[7] 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.

[15] An important study of Ottoman confectionery called Conditorei des Orients was published by the royal confectioner Friedrich Unger in 1838.

[16] The first confectionery in Manchester, England was opened by Elizabeth Raffald who had worked six years in domestic service as a housekeeper.

Pastry is a large and diverse category of baked goods, united by the flour-based doughs used as the base for the product.

Scones and related sweet quick breads, such as bannock, are similar to baking powder biscuits and, in sweeter, less traditional interpretations, can seem like a cupcake.

Some of the categories and types of sugar confectionery include the following:[18] Shelf life is largely determined by the amount of water present in the candy and the storage conditions.

Spoilage of low-moisture candies tends to involve a loss of shape, color, texture, and flavor, rather than the growth of dangerous microbes.