“Parlour candy” (Szaloncukor in hungarian) is a type of sweets traditionally associated with Christmas in Hungary. It is usually made of fondant, covered by chocolate and it is wrapped in shiny coloured foil, then hung on the Christmas tree as a decoration.
Every year, almost 1.5 kilos of it are consumed per household during Christmas season.
The tradition of hanging these candies on the Christmas tree started in the 19th century. It was named szaloncukor because the tree usually stood in the parlour (szalon in hungarian; Cukor means “sugar” or “candy”).
In Hungary no Christmas tree is complete without szaloncukor.
Not only does szaloncukor make a great tree ornament, it’s also a sweet delight. As kids, part of the fun was to eat szaloncukor off the tree and leave the empty wrapper to make it look like it’s still filled with candy.
Today there are lots of flavours: jelly (lemon, orange), chesnut, chocolate, coconut, marzipan, strawberry, raspberry, apple-cinnamon, toffee, hazelnut, joghurt, almond, black forrest, cottage cheese, tiramisu, poppy seed, cappucino, baileys, eggnog.
My favorite szaloncukor is made by Szamos. This year I bought 2 boxes, orange marzipan and the new flavour hazelnut marzipan:
Do you put parlour candy on your Christmas tree?
The Blackberry Boys 
No candies on our tree because they would all disappear by the time Christmas arrives! 🙂
But they sure look yum!
🙂 Here in Hungary we put up the tree on the 24th of December 🙂 But I do have to tell you I already ate one of the boxes I bought! (the hazelnut flavoured) OOPPPSSS 🙂
Never heard of them before but I like the tradition! Nice to learn new things! If you put the tree up on 24th, when do you celebrate Christmas? And throw the tree out? Just curious 🙂
We celebrate december 24th evening. The tradition is to take down the tre on the 6th of january. How is it in Finland?
the same, then. But I am happy to put the tree up earlier (don’t have one yet), and can’t take the needles for quite that long…
What an interesting and yummy tradition. I have never heard of it before. I think I may have to start participating in this next year!
You should 🙂 But I don’t know if they sell these outside of Hungary.
Maybe I can figure out how to make something like them by next year 🙂
http://www.jcu.edu/language/hunghemu/mezes-szalon.html
here is a recipe, I don’t know if it is good. It has it in english and in hungarian… mainly hungarian 🙂
Thanks! I will check it out and use google translate for anything that is in Hungarian. I am sure I can figure it out… well maybe. I may have to coerce one of my more crafty friends to help me. 🙂
1.5kg per household. That’s quite a lot of fondant! I don’t think I could stomach that much (I’m sure in reality I could, I just don’t like to think it).
I do like the idea of decorations doing double-duty as food, though 🙂 .
Well the fondant type was the original, now days they have all kinds of fillings… I already ate 0.5 kilo marzipan filled ones, and it is not even Christmas… so 1.5 kilo per household is not too much 🙂 Just to be sure I bought 1 more kilo today 🙂
Pingback: Christmas Angels | Find the Factors
Just flying by to wish you and yours a very magical Christmas! xxx
Thank you very much! Happy Holidays to you and your family too! 🙂 xoxo Fanni
It’s interesting to know you put up tree on 24th, sounds late to me. When do you normally take down the tree? Over here, we take down around 1, 2 days after new year because we will be putting up decorations to welcome the Chinese New Year which is usually around late Jan or early Feb. I love the sweets on the trees and I am sure the kids have great fun eating and trying to trick each other with empty wrappers!
It is a custom to take down the christmas tree on the 6th of january. But usually I am always late 🙂 I took it down today 🙂 What kind of decorations do you put up for the Chinese New Year?
Me too! I have just taken it down last weekend! We put up lots of red stuff on the wall, like Chinese scroll with good luck wordings, lanterns made from red packets, put on decorations for the plants (something like Christmas tree), and most people will buy pots of plants like cherry blossom to put in their houses!
Sounds really colorful 🙂 I like it. Here january is such an ugly month, the holidays are over, it is usually really cold, and nothing happening all month 😦 I usually feel like a bear, I want to hibernate through it…
I know what you mean! After the Chinese New Year, that’s not much to look forward to either. And over here, the heat will slowly start to get us on our nerves.
I think I would love these! In Spain, they have a traditional Christmas sweet called ‘polverones’ – dry, horrible things 😦 However, there’s also marzipan and turrón, thank God.
I googled polverones and they do look dry 😦 It is characterized by that it crumbles easily. doesn’t sound so good. You would love parlour candy, so many flvours to choose from, and they are also pretty 🙂 I just ate the last 2 today, marzipan flavoured 🙂 Any good sweets, cakes in Key West? xoxo Fanni
Well, “polvo” means “dust”, so that did give me a clue as to what to expect 😉
KW is full of great cakes!!! I’m in heaven 🙂