Hungarians’ obsession with SZALONCUKOR (fondant candy), the traditional Christmas tree sweet, goes deep into the national psyché. The fun part of it involves hanging them with a special device called szaloncukor akasztó (metal hooks) when you decorate the tree. Further fun comes when you are allowed to grab the sweets from the tree, but you leave the empty shiny wrappers hanging on the tree until it is removed after Christmas.
Just recently, Fungarian hosted a wonderful family of Hungarian background from Australia and the mother related that her grandmother had kept all the empty szaloncukor wrappers since they emigrated in 1945 and they used them to decorate their Christmas tree.
Though the recipe for these sweets was originally French, and although we got the sweets via the Germans, by the late 19th century they had become completely Hungarianised thanks to the Stühmer chocolate factory which produced szaloncukor for the famous Café Gerbeaud.
If you visit Budapest at Christmas time you must try some of the more than 20 flavours of Stühmer or Szamos Marzipan szaloncukor.