Happy Friday!
Today’s Editor’s Corner stems from the following question: What do you call those tiny bits of confectionary, which add a delightful crunch and festive flair to desserts ranging from ice cream cones to doughnuts to birthday cakes? According to this article from Cakespy (via the curious Peggy E.), the answer depends on where you live.
Sprinkles is the term favored in most of the United States, and is actually quite broad: it is used to not only to refer to those tiny cylinders of garnishing magic, but is also used to refer to sanding sugar, nonpareils, and even dragées (those little silver balls that will break your teeth on cakes!).
Sprinkles
Dragées
Jimmies is a term with a fun story: legend holds that the Just Born Candy Company in Pennsylvania (producer of PEEPS candy) began producing sprinkles in the 1930s and, since a gentleman named Jimmy ran the sprinkles machine, the product was named after its maker. While the product in question was specifically chocolate sprinkles (also the best kind to make trompe l’oeil caviar, btw), usage seems to have spread to multicolored sprinkles as well. This term is most commonly used in Pennsylvania, and the northeast United States.
Hundreds-and-Thousands is the term favored in England as well as countries which speak British English; this term seems to refer specifically to the tiny, round type of nonpareil sprinkles.
Hundreds-and-Thousands
Kara Church
Technical Editor, Advisory
Symitar Documentation Services
Editor's Corner 
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