You know that flaky, kind of messy, stuck-to-your-teeth orange center? It’s iconic. But if you're wondering when was Butterfinger invented, you have to look back much further than the neon-colored marketing of the 90s suggests. It wasn't some corporate lab creation from the modern era. Honestly, it was a product of the roaring twenties, a time when candy bars were the "tech startups" of the Midwest.
The year was 1923.
While the world was busy obsessing over jazz and the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, Otto Schnering was busy in Chicago. He was the founder of the Curtiss Candy Company. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he’s the same guy who launched Baby Ruth just a few years earlier. He wanted a follow-up hit. He needed something with texture. He got it.
The Secret Origin of the Name
People usually assume "Butterfinger" was just a descriptive name for the peanut butter content. Nope. It was actually a slang term. In the 1920s, if you were clumsy or dropped the ball during a game—especially in baseball—people would call you a "butterfinger." It was a bit of a dig.
Schnering, being a bit of a marketing genius, decided to lean into the public vernacular. He ran a contest to name the new bar. A guy whose name is lost to time but was definitely a fan of the local lingo suggested "Butterfinger." It stuck. It was self-deprecating, catchy, and strangely memorable.
Chicago: The Candy Capital
It’s hard to imagine now, but Chicago was the Silicon Valley of sweets back then. You had Mars, Wrigley, and Curtiss all battling for shelf space. When the Butterfinger was first hitting the scene in the mid-1920s, competition was brutal.
To get people talking, Schnering didn't just buy newspaper ads. He went full "stunt pilot." He literally hired pilots to fly over cities and drop Butterfinger and Baby Ruth bars attached to tiny parachutes. Imagine walking down the street in 1924 and a candy bar just falls from the sky. It was chaotic. It was brilliant. It’s why everyone knew about the brand within months of its launch.
How the Recipe Actually Works
Have you ever looked closely at the inside of a Butterfinger? It’s not just a slab of peanut butter. It’s a honeycomb.
Basically, the process involves cooking sugar and corn syrup into a hard candy base. Then, peanut butter is folded in. The mixture is stretched and folded over and over again—a process called "lamination," similar to how a baker makes a croissant. This creates hundreds of microscopic layers. That’s why it shatters when you bite it. It’s actually a feat of confectionery engineering that hasn't changed much in a century, though the ownership certainly has.
The Big Buyout and the "New" Recipe
For decades, the Curtiss Candy Company held the reins. Then Standard Brands came along, followed by Nabisco. Eventually, the giant Nestlé took over in 1990. This is when the marketing really shifted into the "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger" era we all remember from The Simpsons.
But there’s a massive "but" in this timeline.
In 2018, Ferrero (the Nutella people) bought the brand from Nestlé for a staggering $2.8 billion. They did something risky. They changed the recipe.
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If you’ve tasted one recently and thought, "This feels different," you aren't crazy. Ferrero swapped out the peanuts for larger, high-quality Runner peanuts from the U.S. They removed hydrogenated oils and took out the artificial dye Red 40 and Yellow 5. They replaced them with natural coloring from annatto seeds. Some purists hated it. Others liked that it tasted less like chemicals and more like actual roasted peanuts. It was a bold move for a brand that had stayed relatively stagnant since the 20s.
Why 1923 Matters
Understanding when was Butterfinger invented helps explain why it survived the Great Depression. It was cheap energy. During the 1930s, a candy bar wasn't just a treat; for many, it was a caloric necessity that cost a nickel. It was a "meal replacement" before that was a trendy term.
- The 1920s: Invention and the "Parachute" marketing era.
- The 1930s-40s: Survival through the Depression and inclusion in military rations.
- The 1990s: The Simpsons partnership that made it a pop-culture juggernaut.
- The 2018-Today: The Ferrero era and the shift toward "cleaner" ingredients.
Common Misconceptions
A lot of people think the Butterfinger was invented by Nestlé. Not even close. Nestlé didn't even touch the brand until 67 years after it was already on shelves. Another myth is that it’s just a "crunchy Reese's." Wrong. The chemistry is totally different. A Reese’s is a fat-based peanut butter filling; a Butterfinger is a sugar-glass based structure with peanut butter folded in.
There's also the "Health" myth. Because it has peanuts, some people in the 50s argued it was a "healthy" snack. While it does have some protein, the sugar-to-protein ratio pretty much kills that argument. It’s a candy bar, let’s be real.
Practical Takeaways for the Candy Fan
If you’re looking to experience the history of this bar properly, you should try "The Break." Because of that 1923 lamination process, a fresh Butterfinger should always snap. If it bends or feels chewy, it’s likely old or has been exposed to too much humidity. The sugar layers have absorbed moisture and lost their crystalline structure.
- Check the Date: Always look for the freshest batch to ensure that 1923 "shatter" texture.
- Temperature Matters: Keeping them in the fridge makes the lamination even more brittle, which is how many enthusiasts prefer them.
- Baking Use: Because of the high sugar content in the center, they are one of the few candy bars that hold up their texture when chopped and baked into cookies.
If you really want to dive into the nostalgia, look for "Retro" packaging releases that occasionally pop up. They often mimic the original 1920s Curtiss Candy Company aesthetic. It's a reminder that while the owners change and the dyes get removed, that weird, flaky, orange center is a piece of American history that’s over a hundred years old.
The next time you’re in the checkout line, look at the wrapper. That brand survived a century of corporate wars, a world war, and a complete recipe overhaul. That's a lot of pressure for a candy bar named after a clumsy baseball player.
To truly appreciate the engineering behind the bar, try freezing one for 20 minutes before eating it. The cold temperature stabilizes the microscopic sugar layers, making the "shatter" effect even more pronounced—exactly as Otto Schnering intended back in the Chicago of 1923.