Sugar plus fat delivered to your mouth on a slice of delicious, carby bread — can we check off any more boxes? When it comes to a sugary, fun snack, this sprinkle bread fits all of the cravings in all of the right ways. Within our bacon-wrapped, frosting-coated culinary world there’s something terribly wrong, you’d be surprised to learn that this treat isn’t an American creation.
In New Zealand and Australia, white bread brushed with butter and covered with a layer of jimmie or nonpareil sprinkles is a nostalgic culinary quirk of the two countries. Before the 1930s, fairy bread was an ambiguous term defining both sprinkle bread and a sugar dusted tea bread. It was only until 1935 when the first fairy bread recipe was mentioned in a Christmas-themed news article that the sprinkle-covered bread became firmly established in writing.
The Netherlands has a similar creation with sugar-coated anise seeds covering slices of white bread called hageslag. It wasn’t long before anise was swapped out for a sweeter chocolate flavor, who can blame anyone for choosing chocolate over anise? Holland’s bordering neighbor Belgium also has a similar sprinkle breakfast topping but with a different name – muizenstrontjes – which literally translates to mouse droppings. There’s no definitive connection between the European version and the Australian or New Zealand version, but it’s clear how sprinkles made it to bread. Before sprinkles, people were already covering their bread with sweet jams and spreads, the colorful sprinkles just made it fun for children.
Whether in Europe, Australia, or New Zealand, it doesn’t matter because the variety of sprinkles for your morning bread or special party occasion has proliferated. Nowadays you can find elevated sprinkle bread with cultured butter and specialty sprinkles, but many fans scoff at the thought of making fairy bread extra fancy, to many sprinkle bread is very homey and relaxed. It’s still surprising that even today, fairy bread hasn’t kicked off in the United States. Maybe the last couple of decades hasn’t helped it travel to the states. With modern campaigns for healthy breakfasts, it’d be hard to justify bread with sprinkles in a breakfast landscape of fruits, no sugar, and whole grains.
Despite fairy or hageslag bread not being a candidate for the next American breakfast, it has the potential to be a fun small party bite. While many soggy margarine-smeared sprinkle-patted bread slices sound childish-ly unrefined, there is something that hits a deep nostalgic chord in people’s hearts. And with America’s love of confetti and sprinkle-covered everything, fairy bread certainly wouldn’t stand out.
America gets a bad wrap for having some unhealthy breakfasts, but it’s unfair to say that the US is the only country with a morning sweet tooth. Like peanut butter jelly sandwiches or a bowl of marshmallow cookie cereal for American children, fairy bread screams childhood to those down under. Regardless of where people live, it seems that all children have a fun and playful sweet tooth.
