{
    "id": 1070590,
    "title": "Rhubarb and custard sweets",
    "slug": "rhubarb-and-custard",
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    "url": "https://sweeties.net/wiki/rhubarb-and-custard/",
    "modified": "2026-09-26T14:36:51+01:00",
    "excerpt": "Rhubarb and custard sweets are two tone boiled sweets, half sharp rhubarb and half smooth custard, named after a British pudding pairing.",
    "content_text": "Rhubarb and custard sweets are a boiled sweet of the British sweet shop: little two tone sweets, one side rhubarb, the other custard.\nWhat they are\nA rhubarb and custard sweet is a boiled sweet with two flavours and two colours. One half has a sharp, fruity rhubarb flavour; the other has a smooth, creamy custard flavour. The sweets we sell in our pick and mix are exactly that: two tone boiled sweets, sharp rhubarb and smooth custard.\nWhy rhubarb and custard?\nThe sweet is named after a British pairing. In Britain, rhubarb stalks are usually stewed with sugar and used in pies, tarts and crumbles, and rhubarb is also combined with custard or whipped cream to make a rhubarb fool. Rhubarb has a strong, tart taste.\nRhubarb is a vegetable, but it is often used like a fruit. Only the stalks are eaten: the large leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid, which makes them poisonous. In the United Kingdom, the first rhubarb of the year is harvested by candlelight in dark forcing sheds, which produces sweeter, more tender stalks, and many of these sheds are in the Rhubarb Triangle in Yorkshire, between Wakefield, Leeds and Morley.\nWho makes them\nRhubarb and custard sweets are made by a number of traditional sweet makers. One of them is Stockley's, founded in Lancashire in 1918 by Malcolm Stockley on his return from the First World War. The firm is still privately owned, makes its sweets in small batches by hand, and lists rhubarb and custard among its traditional sweets, alongside pear drops, mint humbugs and chocolate limes.\nThe flavour has spread beyond the boiled sweet, too. Swizzels, the makers of Love Hearts, have made a rhubarb and custard version of their Drumstick Squashies: see Drumstick lollies.\nMore boiled sweets\nRhubarb and custard sit alongside other sweet shop boiled sweets such as pear drops, kola kubes and pineapple chunks, all of which we sell: see pear drops, kola kubes and pineapple chunks. For how boiled sweets are made, see how are boiled sweets made?",
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