Pineapple chunks

Pineapple chunks are small golden boiled sweets, dusted in sugar, with a sweet and tangy pineapple flavour. The ones we sell in our pick and mix are golden sugared chunks with a tangy bite.

What they are

A pineapple chunk is a small, chunky boiled sweet with a pineapple flavour, usually golden yellow and coated in sugar. Sharp boiled sweets like these usually get their tang from food acids such as citric acid. Some sweets of this kind are rolled in sour sanding, a mix of sugar with citric, tartaric and malic acids, to make them taste tart: see acid drops.

A Georgian status symbol

The sweet is named after a fruit that was once much sought after by the wealthy in Britain. Pineapples are tropical, and growing them in Britain took a great deal of effort. Pineapple plants were sent from the Netherlands to English gardeners in 1719. The first pineapple grown in England was raised at Dorney Court, in Dorney, Buckinghamshire, and in 1723 a huge pineapple stove to heat the plants was built at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

In the second half of the 18th century, growing pineapples on British estates became a matter of fierce rivalry among wealthy aristocrats. John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore, built a hothouse on his Scottish estate topped with a huge stone cupola, 14 metres tall, in the shape of a pineapple. It is still known as the Dunmore Pineapple. Pineapple shapes also became a decoration in architecture.

Pineapple chunks and their cousins

Pineapple chunks belong to a family of bright, fruity boiled sweets in the traditional British sweet shop. A close cousin is the kola kube, a cola flavoured sweet made in a similar chunky, sugar dusted style, and they sit alongside rhubarb and custard and pear drops, all of which we sell loose in our pick and mix: see kola kubes, rhubarb and custard sweets and pear drops.

For how sweets like these are made, see how are boiled sweets made?

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