SUGAR SCULPTURES
The art of clear toy candy
Wearing a long skirt and apron, Suzanne Wainwright-Evans worked tirelessly in the kitchen of Perkiomen Township’s historic Pennypacker Mills. During last year’s Victorian Christmas, curious visitors filled the room, watching her make an old-fashioned favorite: clear toy candy.
“It is kind of a slowly dying art. And it’s important that we keep this tradition alive,” the hobbyist said. “It’s very unique and special to this part of the United States.”
Her hand-poured hard-candy creations range from “tiny irons for ironing” to a 29-pound train — all cast from water, sugar and cream of tartar, which “keeps the candy nice and clear.”
So far, she’s amassed “around 400 molds,” including “some of the early patented ones from Thomas Mills,” a Philadelphia manufacturer founded in the nineteenth century.
“It was expensive back then. First, you’d play with it, and then you’d eat it. It was a toy, and then it was your treat,” explained Wainwright-Evans, a scientist whose day job is “managing pests without pesticides.”
Interestingly, an insect — cochineal — once supplied the candy’s red coloring.
“I’m doing it for the historical aspect,” she said, “to make people aware of the history, to understand that this is what candy used to be like.”
So too say candymakers at Philadelphia’s Shane Confectionery, who “bring back the flavors of the past.”
“We get a lot of nostalgia from people still,” described designer Pavia Burroughs. “They remember their parents or their grandparents giving them clear toy.”
She’s catalogued more than 1,100 molds in the collection. Among them: Santa, a reindeer with “very beautiful” antlers and a bicycle-riding frog.
“They’re so fun and special,” Burroughs said. “I like the reveal when you take it out of the mold. it’s always a ‘wow’ when you open it.”
Shane sells the candies colored, but unflavored “because that’s traditional.”
“It’s sort of a shining star of your table,” she added. “For the larger ones, you’re supposed to smash them with a hammer and share them with friends.”
Back at Pennypacker Mills, a little boy gazed longingly at them, hoping to do just that. He settled for a small candy horse from the gift shop and left with a huge grin.