Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats

• 1. Introduction

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  Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats pour out of Danish factories at a rate of roughly 800 million a year. For a country that small, the number is startling, and most of those treats are never eaten there.

  The design is simple. A biscuit forms the base, a soft white filling is piled on top, and a hard shell of chocolate seals it all in. Yet this little sweet has settled on nearly every continent, and it carries a different name almost everywhere it lands.

  The filling is not always marshmallow, either. Sometimes it is whipped egg white, sometimes meringue, and sometimes fruit purée. The same basic confection has been a school birthday ritual, a national icon, a seasonal craving, and the subject of fierce arguments about what a name is allowed to say.

  How does one Danish idea become so many different foods? And why do the names keep changing?

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• 2. Danish Cream Buns

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  In nineteenth-century Denmark, the confection was first made with real cream, and that is why it was called a flødebolle, meaning cream bun. Producers later switched the filling to whipped egg whites, a change that helped them industrialize production and keep the product fresh for longer.

  Denmark's largest producer, Elvirasminde, makes about 650 million of them each year. It sends 400 million abroad and leaves 250 million for Danes, which works out to roughly 45 per person annually.

  On a Danish child's birthday, handing out flødeboller at school is the tradition. Supermarkets stock them everywhere, and confectioners sell fancier versions. Ice cream shops perch one on the last scoop of a cone, crowned with whipped cream and jam, or with guf, a topping of whipped egg whites, sugar and fruit flavouring.

  Bakers treat the sweet as a test of skill. It appeared as a technical challenge on Den store Bagedyst, the Danish version of The Great Bake Off.

  The range of variations shows how deeply it is loved. Coatings run from white chocolate to dark chocolate to liquorice. Commercial bases are usually plain wafer, while premium and homemade versions use shortbread or marzipan biscuits. One shape, the bøf, is a flat patty named after the Danish word for steak, and seasonal editions appear as tall, sharp-edged Christmas trees.

  As luxury versions spread, the flødebolle began to shift from a basic sweet into something closer to a boxed gift of fine chocolates.

  In 1980, a Hungarian farming and food cooperative called Újvilág launched its own version to great success. It was modelled on the Danish original and built with Danish machinery. Production then declined through the 1990s, once foreign competitors put local food factories under heavy pressure.

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• 3. Egg White Country

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  Germany's Schokokuss was made commercially from 1920, although the first mention of it appears as early as 1892. Industrial manufacturing began in the 1950s.

  Today the country makes about one billion a year, close to a dozen for every person. The filling is always sweetened egg white foam, and versions made with sugar substitutes are also sold. Fairs have long sold them, and children sometimes squash one inside a split bun to make a Matschbrötchen, which translates roughly as mud roll.

  In Austria, Walter Niemetz created the Schwedenbombe in 1926. He named it for a friend of Swedish origin who helped with its development. Manufacturing began in 1930.

  Packs originally held six pieces, and now come in twelve and twenty as well. In every size, half the pieces are plain and half are sprinkled with coconut flakes. The Schwedenbombe holds a market share of around 80% in Austria, with brand recognition of about 94%.

  In Bolivia, the traditional maker is Chocolates Condor. Its sweetened egg white foam follows the German approach rather than the marshmallow one, and attempts at new flavours have not dislodged the classic version.

  Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union have a close cousin in zefir. Its name comes from Zephyr, the Greek god of the light west wind, a nod to its delicate, airy texture. The recipe merges the traditional Russian pastila with French meringue, using fruit and berry purée, sugar and whipped egg whites.

  Unlike commercial meringue, zefir is never crisp. Both plain and chocolate-coated versions are common. Of all these relatives, it alone has no biscuit underneath.

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• 4. Scotland's Teacake

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  Tunnock's, a Scottish company founded in 1890, owes its best-known product to Sir Boyd Tunnock, who invented the teacake in 1956. He chose Italian meringue instead of marshmallow, piped it by hand onto a biscuit base, and covered it in milk chocolate.

  The filling is made from egg white rather than gelatine. That makes it far more delicate than marshmallow, and it also makes the Tunnock's teacake suitable for vegetarians. The milk chocolate version comes in red and silver foil, and the plain chocolate version in blue and gold.

  Other British styles differ. Some use a higher proportion of thicker, rippled chocolate and top it with a half walnut. Competitors such as Lees' Foods put jam in the centre and use a firmer filling.

  In 2013, the café chain Costa Coffee introduced a giant version about three times the standard size. It had a chocolate biscuit base, marshmallow, and raspberry jam in the middle.

  The name can confuse outsiders. This teacake has nothing in common with the English teacake, a sweet roll with dried fruit that is served toasted and buttered. In Scotland, it is a break-time biscuit eaten with a cup of tea, as the advertising shows.

  For many Scots it evokes childhood and symbolises home, even for those living abroad. The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service hands them to people who have just given blood. An online appreciation society exists for the teacake, and so does one at Dundee University.

  Michelle Kershaw and Nick Dodds built a giant, fully edible replica for the show Pimp That Snack. At the opening ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, giant teacakes danced.

  The Marks and Spencer company once fought a legal battle over whether the teacake was a biscuit or a cake. Chocolate-covered biscuits are taxed, but cakes are not. UK tax authorities eventually agreed that it was a cake, yet refused to repay most of the VAT already paid. Jaffa cakes were caught up in the same fight.

  The European Court of Justice ruled that the tax should in principle be repaid. After 13 years of litigation, the Law Lords gave Marks and Spencer full repayment in 2009. The refund covered tax paid from 1973 to 1994 and came to £3.5 million.

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• 5. North American Cousins

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  In 1901, Théophile Viau introduced his Empire biscuits at a hockey game in Westmount, near Montreal. His Viau cookie factory made them. In 1927 he removed the vanilla to cut costs and renamed the product Whippets.

  Dare Foods later bought the Viau bakery. It now makes Whippets in Cambridge, Ontario, with dark and milk chocolate coatings and twelve flavour varieties. Dare also produces Viva Puffs in two flavours. Canadians have known such treats as chocolate puffs for at least 50 years, and Viva is simply a trade name.

  The Canadian science program How It's Made once filmed the production line. It kept key details hidden, such as the amount of marshmallow filling and the ingredients. The narrator called those details classified information.

  In the United States, the equivalent is the Mallomar, made by Nabisco. A graham cracker circle is topped with extruded marshmallow and covered in a thin shell of dark chocolate. Mallomars went on sale in 1913, the same year as the Moon Pie, a treat with similar ingredients. The first box was sold in West Hoboken, New Jersey, now known as Union City.

  Mallomars are normally on shelves only from early October through April. The stated reason is that they melt in summer heat, but marketing is as much behind the policy as practicality. Devoted fans stock up in winter and keep boxes in the refrigerator through the summer months. Nabisco sells other chocolate cookie brands all year, including Pinwheels, which also combines chocolate, cookie and marshmallow.

  The cookie's audience is strikingly local. Eighty-five percent of all Mallomars are sold in the New York metropolitan area.

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• 6. Krembo Season

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  In 1966, the Whitman Company began mass-producing the krembo in Israel. The name is Hebrew, a contraction of krem, meaning cream, and bo, meaning in it. Before that, European versions of the sweet had been popular homemade treats in Mandate Palestine, sold under names borrowed from Europe. The company's new name replaced them, and has been the only one used since.

  A mocha flavour arrived in 1967. Strauss acquired Whitman in 1979 and today holds 54% of the krembo market. In the 1980s and 1990s, smaller makers tried banana and strawberry, but none gained meaningful market share. Vanilla remains the most popular flavour, with mocha in second place.

  By weight, a krembo is 17% biscuit base, 53% fluffy marshmallow creme-like foam, and about 30% thin compound chocolate. Each one is wrapped in thin, colourful aluminium foil. An average krembo weighs 25 grams and has 115 calories.

  Krembos are sold only from October to February, and the Israeli appetite for them in that window is huge. About 50 million are sold each year, an average of nine per person. People treat them as a winter alternative to ice cream.

  A study funded in 2003 by Strauss asked how Israelis eat them. A full 69% start from the top, with the cream, and only 10% begin with the biscuit at the bottom. The rest had no preference.

  In 2005, Strauss signed an agreement with Unilever to export krembos and ice cream to the United States and Canada. Demand there was for strictly kosher products. They may be sold only in kosher supermarkets and import shops, and Dairy Delight, a subsidiary of Norman's Dairy, distributes them in North America.

  In 2007, Nestlé launched an ice cream variation called lekbo, a name that means lick inside.

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• 7. Local Twists Worldwide

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  In Portugal, supermarket brands sell bombocas in three main flavours. White is meringue, pink is strawberry, and yellow is vanilla. In recent years, they have also been called beijinhos.

  South America offers many variations. In the 1970s, Terrabusi first sold the confection in Argentina, but it is no longer made there. Only the Uruguayan ricarditos remain available. In Uruguay, the maker Ricard covers a meringue in chocolate.

  Peru has a version sold by Nestlé, and strawberry and lúcuma flavours are currently competing to become permanent. In Brazil, the Nhá Benta is made by the Kopenhagen chocolaterie. Cacau Show makes the Montebello, which has no waffle base, and the Dan-Top spread the international formula to the masses. Flavours include coconut, lemon, passion fruit, caramel, boysenberry, tonka bean and coffee.

  In Colombia and Ecuador it is called Chocmelo, a blend of chocolate and masmelo, which is marshmallow. These do not always have a cookie base.

  In Australia, Arnott's Chocolate Royals come in milk and dark chocolate. They look like a Tunnock's teacake but are smaller and have a thin layer of jam between the biscuit and the marshmallow. A coconut-coated variation, Eskimo Snowballs from Betta Foods, has been discontinued, while Coles sells a similar one called Snow Drops.

  New Zealand's Griffin's has made MallowPuffs since the 1960s. The marshmallow is denser and more rubbery than Tunnock's filling, and the flavours include Hokey Pokey, Toffee and Rocky Road. A national advertising campaign with the slogan "Have you done enough for a MallowPuff" briefly caught on in the 1990s.

  New Zealand also has the chocolate fish, a pink or white marshmallow fish of 12 to 20 centimetres in a thin milk chocolate coat. A blower gives the coating its scale-like ripples during production. Kiwis use it as a reward for a small job done well, and the phrase "Give that kid a chocolate fish" works whether or not one is on hand.

  In the Philippines, Fibisco sells Choco Mallows with a soft chocolate covering that does not fully melt at room temperature, likely to protect it in the tropical climate. South Africa has Sweetie Pies, first made by Cadbury's and now by Beyers. Serbia has Jaffa's Munchmallow, which resembles the original Glasgow version. Poland has warm ice cream, or ciepłe lody, a dessert that can be seen as a relative.

  Another family sandwiches the filling between two cake or cookie layers. Examples include the Moon Pie from Chattanooga Bakery in the Southern United States, and Scooter Pie from Burry's in the Northeast. South Korea's Choco Pie has become a generic term across East and South Asia, and Morinaga's Angel Pie is sold in Japan. Wagon Wheels, from Burton's Biscuit and Dare Foods, sell in the UK, Canada and Australia.

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• 8. Changing Names

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  Between the 1960s and the 1980s, every major Danish producer dropped the word negro from its product names because it is a racial slur. In the Copenhagen area, such a name had once been common.

  German companies reached a similar conclusion. Older colloquial names, including Mohrenkopf, meaning moor's head, were judged to carry racist connotations. Most firms moved to Schokoküsse, Schaumküsse, or brand names such as Dickmann's.

  Switzerland shows how unevenly the change has spread. German-speaking Swiss still sell it as Mohrenkopf. French-speaking Switzerland uses têtes choco, meaning chocolate heads, but in France the more common name remains a slur.

  In Flanders, a name with an offensive meaning is still recognised, though manufacturers now sell under a different one. Milka's Belgian version carries the brand name Melo-Cakes.

  In 2005, a group called the Foundation for Honor and Reparation of Payments for Victims of Slavery in Suriname campaigned to change the name in the Netherlands. One of the largest producers renamed its product Zoenen, meaning kisses, and others followed in 2006. Some had seen the Dutch word as more neutral than its English equivalent, so controversy followed. Boxes of nine now play on the name as Negen Zoenen.

  Finland had borrowed a German name in 1951. In 2001 it became Brunberg's Kisses, after the manufacturer Brunberg of Porvoo.

  The Middle East saw changes of its own. In Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, the name once meant slave head, and has since been replaced by Sambo. Lebanon's Gandour brought out a local version in the 1950s under the older name. It now sells as Tarboush, after the fez, though people still use the former name in public. In Iran, the treat was once called Negrogis, after its manufacturer, but is now sold as winter ice cream and remains popular with children.

  The most recent change came in 2020, during the George Floyd protests. Nestlé announced that it would rename its Colombian confection and remove the packaging image of a black woman with bare shoulders and a colourful dress.

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