Colonial America: Candy and Confectionery Drop Recipes


These easy recipes and instructions for making candy drops and lozenges make a great family activity or novelty for a charity drive.

Recipes from Mackenzie’s, 1829.

To Make Confectionery Drops

  • Take double refined sugar, pound and sift it through a hair sieve, not too fine; and then sift it through a silk sieve, to take out all the fine dust, which would destroy the beauty of the drop [you can skip this step if you use confectionery sugar]
  • Put the sugar into a clean pan, and moisten it with any favourite aromatic [any flavor extract]; if using rose-water, pour it in slowly
  • Stir it with a paddle, which the sugar will fall from, as soon as it is moist enough, without sticking. Colour it with a small quantity of liquid carmine, or any other colour, ground fine [or use a few drops of food coloring]
  • Take a small pan with a lip, fill it three parts with [the] paste, place it on a small stove, and stir the sugar with a little ivory or bone handle, until it becomes liquid
  • When it almost boils, take it from the fire and continue to stir it; if it be too moist take a little of the powdered sugar, and add a spoonful to the paste, and stir it till it is of such a consistence as to run without too much extension
  • Have a tin plate, very clean and smooth; take the little pan in the left hand, and hold in the right a bit of iron, copper or silver wire, four inches long, to take off the drop from the lip of the pan
  • Let it fall regularly on the tin plate
  • Two hours afterwards, take off the drops with the blade of a knife.

Chocolate Drops

Scrape the chocolate to powder, and put an ounce to each pound of sugar; moisten the paste with clear water, work it as above, only take care to use all the paste prepared, as, if it be put on the fire a second time, it greases, and the drop is not of the proper thickness.

Orange Flower Drops

These are made as the sugar drops, only using orange flower water; or instead of it, use the essence of naroli, which is the essential oil of that flower [use one teaspoon of orange-flavored extract if available].

Coffee Drops

An ounce of coffee to a pound of sugar will form a strong decoction; when cleared, use it to moisten the sugar, and then make the drops as above.

The copyright of the article Colonial America: Candy and Confectionery Drop Recipes in 19th Century Recipes is owned by Pat Williams. Permission to republish Colonial America: Candy and Confectionery Drop Recipes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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