hagelslag isn't just sprinkles...

Sprinkles or jimmies? Either way they're tops
By Richard Hartel
Special to The Capital Times

You might ask for sprinkles. You might ask for jimmies. Either way, you're asking for those little chocolate candy pieces that transform plain ice cream into a fun treat.

What you call these little chocolate bits seems to depend on where you live. In many places on the East Coast, Philadelphia and Boston, for example, chocolate sprinkles are called jimmies. But it's not the entire East Coast, since New Yorkers call them sprinkles. And some people as far west as Michigan and even Wisconsin call them jimmies.

The term sprinkles applies to a wide range of candy-type pieces that are scattered onto ice cream and other treats. From chocolate or rainbow-colored pieces to multi-colored sugar crystals, sprinkles come in numerous sizes, shapes and colors. Even those little silver or white candy balls, known as nonpareils, qualify as sprinkles.

The term "jimmies" is thought to have originated in the 1930s in Bethlehem, Pa., at the Just Born candy company. Although most well-known for marshmallow Peeps, Just Born also made the small chocolate sprinkles at that time. As the story goes, the man who ran the company's sprinkle-making machine was named Jimmy, and apparently the name stuck.
Sprinkles or jimmies? Either way they're tops
sugarcraft.com
Sugarcraft Inc. makes sprinkles in Hamilton, Ohio.

The Dutch have a similar chocolate sprinkle product, called Hagelslag. They sprinkle chocolate Hagelslag onto buttered bread for breakfast or lunch. No, it's not named after the person who first developed them. In Dutch, Hagel means hail, and Hagelslag means pellet.

A hail of small pellets. Exactly what happens when you pour sprinkles onto ice cream or cupcakes!

Chocolate sprinkles are made largely of sugar and corn starch, with a little fat to soften the texture and some cocoa powder to give it flavor and color. They taste a little like chocolate, but really don't have much flavor of their own. The rainbow-colored sprinkles have no flavor added whatsoever.

The Dutch chocolate Hagelslag, on the other hand, is actually chocolate that's been made into a paste by adding powdered sugar. They actually taste good, whereas chocolate sprinkles need ice cream or cupcakes to be palatable. Do any of you eat sprinkles by themselves?

Other candy products made from sugar and corn starch are candy cigarettes and those little candy dots (Candy Buttons) attached to a strip of paper. Remember them? Although they're much harder than sprinkles (they have lower water content and don't have the fat to soften the texture), they're made in much the same way.

To make chocolate sprinkles, the sugar, corn starch, fat and cocoa are mixed to form a paste, sort of like a candy Play-Doh. The paste is then extruded in a machine that looks like a pasta press to form thin strands of candy. Multiple ribbons of chocolate candy vermicelli exit the bottom of the extruder.

The candy strands are collected on a vibrating bed and broken into small pieces by shaking. The pieces that are too short or too long are returned to the mixing head to take another trip through the extruder. Those with the right size and shape move on to the polishing stage.

To improve their appearance, sprinkles are coated with confectioner's glaze and wax until they're nice and shiny.

Confectioner's glaze is the candy maker's term for edible shellac. A thin layer of shellac puts a shine on the sprinkles just like it does on a nice wooden desk. Confectioner's glaze and wax give the shine to everything from malted milk balls to jelly beans.

Chocolate sprinkles or jimmies, whichever you call them, go well on ice cream, cupcakes and cookies. But why stop there? How about a peanut butter and sprinkle sandwich? Or cream cheese and rainbow sprinkles on a bagel? What interesting combinations with sprinkles have you tried?

To share your own sprinkle story or to get more information about the field of food science, contact Rich Hartel at rwhartel@wisc.edu. Hartel is a professor of food engineering in the Department of Food Science at UW-Madison.
Published: August 1, 2006