Candy sprinkles, hundreds and thousands, or jimmies are very small pieces of confectionery used as a decoration or to add texture to desserts – typically cupcakes, cookies, doughnuts, ice cream, frozen yogurt, and some puddings. The candies, which are produced in a variety of colors, are usually too small to be eaten individually and are in any case not intended to be eaten by themselves.
Nonpareils date back at least to the late 18th-century, if not earlier. French confectioners may have named them for being "without equal" as delicate decoration for pièces montées and desserts.
Dutch hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles) was first invented in 1936 by Gerard de Vries for Venz, a Dutch company made popular by said treat. Hagelslag is used on bread, most of the time butter is spread out so the hagelslag does not fall off. Several letters to Venz from a five-year-old boy, H. Bakker, asking for a chocolate bread topping, inspired and prompted de Vries' development of sprinkles.[citation needed] After much research and venture, de Vries and Venz created the first machine to produce the tiny cylindrical treats. They were named "Hagelslag" after their resemblance to a weather phenomenon prominent in the Netherlands, hail. Only hagelslag with a cacao percentage of more than 35 can bear the name chocolat hagelslag. If the percentage is under the 35%, it has to be called cacao fantasy hagelslag.
Sanding sugar has been commercially available in a small range of colors for decades. Now it comes in a wide variety, including black, and metallic-like "glitter."
Sprinkles generally require frosting in order to stick to the desired food surface. They can be most commonly found on smaller confections such as cupcakes or frosted sugar cookies, as these generally have more frosting and smaller diameter than do cakes.
In the Netherlands, chocolade hagelslag is used as a sandwich topping (similar to muisjes and vlokken); this is also common in Belgium and Indonesia, once a colony of the Netherlands.[8] These countries also use vruchtenhagel and anijshagel (made of sugar and fruit/anise-flavour respectively) on sandwiches (mainly at breakfast).
Sprinkles, known as hundreds and thousands, are often used as a bread topping in Australia and New Zealand, in the form of fairy bread given as a treat to children. White bread is spread with butter or margarine, and hundreds and thousands sprinkled over the top.
A dessert called confetti cake has sprinkles mixed with the batter, where they slowly dissolve and form little colored spots, giving the appearance of confetti. Confetti cakes are popular for children's birthdays in the United States. The Pillsbury Company sells its own variation known as "Funfetti" cake, incorporating a sprinkle-like substance into the mix.