Kit Kat is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection. They were created by Rowntree’s of York, the United Kingdom in 1911. The standard bars consist of two or four pieces composed of three layers of wafer, separated and covered by an outer layer of chocolate.
Each finger can be snapped from the bar separately. There are many flavors of Kit Kat, including milk, white, and dark chocolate. The four-bar version came after an employee of Rowntree’s York factory put in a suggestion for “a chocolate bar that a man could take to work in his pack up”. It was launched in September 1935 in the UK as Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp, and the later two-finger version in 1936. It was renamed Kit Kat Chocolate Crisp in 1937, and just Kit Kat after World War II.
The use of the name Kit Kat or Kit Cat for a type of food goes back to the 18th century when mutton pies[1] known as Kit Kat were served at meetings of the political Kit-Cat Club in London owned by pastry chef Christopher Cat.
It is made up of three layers of wafers. The wafers are covered with a layer of chocolate inside and out. Each whole piece is considered a “finger.” In 1911 Rowntree trademarked the terms Kit-Cat and Kit Kat. The candy first started out with the name Kit Cat.
In 1942, during World War II the flavor of Kit Kat was changed to dark chocolate; the packaging abandoned its Chocolate Crisp title and was colored blue. After the war, the name became Kit Kat, with the original milk chocolate recipe and red packaging.
In June 1988, Swiss company Nestlé acquired Kit Kat through the purchase of Rowntree’s, giving Nestlé global control over the brand, except in the US, and production and distribution increased with new facilities in Japan and additional manufacturing operations set up in Malaysia, India, and China. The Hershey Company has a license to produce Kit Kat bars in the United States which dates from 1970 when Hershey executed a licensing agreement with Rowntree which allowed Hershey to retain the Kit Kat license so long as Hershey was not sold.
The traditional bar has four fingers which each measure approximately 0.4 inches by 3.5 inches. The 1999 Kit Kat Chunky (known as Big Kat and Kit Kat Extra Crispy in the US) has one large finger approximately 1 inch wide.
Nestle Australia released the world’s most expensive Kit Kat in 2018, a limited edition 24-karat gold-covered bar to celebrate the Chinese New Year! Only 88 bars containing Phoenix Oolong tea leaves from the Guangdong Province of China paired with lychee and fragrant rose petals will be made. The bars are topped off with whole rose buds and rose jelly and wrapped in edible 24-carat gold leaf. The most expensive Kit Kat cost $88 dollars.
Footnotes
- A Scotch pie or mutton pie is a small, double-crust meat pie filled with minced mutton, haggis, or other meat. It may also be known as a shell pie or mince pie (although the latter term is ambiguous) to differentiate it from other varieties of savory pie, such as the steak pie, steak, and kidney pie, steak-and-tattie (potato) pie, and so forth. The Scotch pie is believed to originate in Scotland, where it is simply called “a pie” but can be found in other parts of the United Kingdom, and is widely sold all over Canada. They are often sold alongside other types of hot food on football grounds, traditionally accompanied by a drink of Bovril, resulting in the occasional reference to football pies. The traditional filling of mutton is often highly spiced with pepper and other ingredients and is placed inside a shell of hot water crust pastry. It is baked in a round, straight-sided tin, about 8 cm in diameter and 4 cm high, and the top “crust” (which is soft) is placed about 1 cm lower than the rim to make space for adding accompaniments such as mashed potatoes, baked beans, brown sauce, gravy or an egg. [Back]
Sources
Wikipedia
Just Fun Facts
The Awesome Daily
