Stick candy is a long, cylindrical variety of hard candy, usually four to seven inches in length and 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter, but in some extraordinary cases up to 14 inches in length and two inches in diameter. Like candy canes, they usually have at least two different colors swirled together in a spiral pattern, resembling a barber's pole.
A variety of flavored stick candy in a store display
Stick candy can be bent when hardening, making candy canes
A hard candy, or boiled sweet, is a sugar candy prepared from one or more sugar-based syrups that is heated to a temperature of 160 °C (320 °F) to make candy. Among the many hard candy varieties are stick candy such as the candy cane, lollipops, rock, aniseed twists, and bêtises de Cambrai. "Boiled" is a misnomer, as sucrose melts fully at approximately 186 °C. Further heating breaks it into glucose and fructose molecules before it can vaporize.
Hard candy
Heated syrup being poured onto a cooling table
Kongen af Danmark ("King of Denmark") are Danish candies containing anise, sugar and beetroot juice. They were originally invented to persuade the king of Denmark to take the medicine he had been prescribed, as he did not like the anise's strong flavour.
