"Candy bar" is a U.S. term for a confection which consists purely or mostly of candy and is shaped as a bar or an ingot. Many are coated in chocolate, or combined with another confection and coated with chocolate. Candy bars are made and consumed all over the world, and manufactured to local tastes and environmental conditions. However one thing that they all have in common is that they contain candy. Candy is normally formed by dissolving sugar in water or milk and boiling it until it starts to caramelise. Depending upon the solvent and upon end result of the process the candy may be called candy, caramel, toffee, fudge, brittle, or tablet. The recipe also governs how hard, soft or chewy the end result may be.
Bars which only contain chocolate, nuts, fondant or syrup but not candy are not candy bars. A McCowan's Highland toffee bar is pure candy and therefore a definite candy bar. A Twix bar just qualifies as a candy bar because the caramel within it is a form of candy and forms quite a large proportion of it. A Three Musketeers bar (or a Milky Way bar outside of the United States) is not a candy bar because it consists purely of chocolate and aerated fondant. However, in the common U.S. vernacular, any type of easily consumed bar sold in an individual wrapper is referred to as a candy bar, whether technically correct or not.
Candy bars are one of the common items available from a vending machine.
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