Werthers Originals - The Candy That Says 'You're Special'

The year was 1903. The place was Werther, a small village in Westphalia, Germany. August Storck had a dream, a dream to create the creamiest, most delicious hard boiled sweet that Germany had ever tasted. And so it began, in the middle of the Teutoburg Forest , the "Werther steam-powered candy factory" was founded and the toffee we have all come to love was born.

Well not quite. August Storck had the dream but it was Gustav Nebel, one of the first employees, who became the father of the delicious, doubly creamy Werther's Original. Gustav poured love, patience and a whole lot of effort into into creating the sweets that tasted so unbelievably good.

His secret? Fresh cream, real butter, white and brown sugars, a pinch of salt, and lots of time. And because, in the end, the candies came out particularly well, they were called Werther's Original, in homage to his own town.

The Storck Company went from strength to strength. In the 1930s - according to its own website - it 'developed the first brand-name bonbon. Until then, sweets had been sold unpackaged, as no-name products, in the manufacturer´s home region only. Storck wrapped its bonbons, printed the Storck name on the wrappers and soon sold them far beyond its home base'. As the German packaging of Werther's Original has it: 'We can today, all over the world, savour the delicious and creamy taste of this original recipe as if the candy came directly from the workshop of the confectioner Gustav Nebel'.

Ingredients

4 Medium Size Apples
4 Caramel Apples Sticks
50 pieces (11 oz) of Werther's Originals Chewy Caramels (unwrapped)
2 tbs of Evaporated Milk

Instructions

Push sticks into top of apples. Place caramels and milk in microwave-safe bowl Microwave on high, stirring frequently until melted (about 3 mins).

Dip and swirl apples in melted caramel mixture, using a spoon for even coverage.

Place on waxed paper until caramel sets or for quicker results place in the refridgerator (15 mins)

It's difficult not to love the werther's advert. Afer all, it's got an adoring old Grandad who reminds us of just how special Grandads are. He takes us back into the delights of our childhood when sweets were sweets, and we stood at counters looking at great big jars fullof them, before taking them away in brown paper bags. But there's a harsh cruelty in this ad. As it draws us into a nostaglic vision of our childhood past, like most adverts it tells us a great big lie. And here lies the reason why our Grandad's never gave us werther's originals. Likely because he'd never heard of them. The dear old Grandfather in the Werther's advert may have been sucking on hard-boiled werthers in the neverland of the advertising world, but unless your Grandfather was a younster before 1997, not likely I know, he would never have known werther's originals existed. This is the year the advert that we now associate with the long tradition of the werther's sweet first ai the false belief that werthers always have, are and always will be the only hard boiled sweet that lets you know you're 'special'.