By Isla Quinn
Crack it. The edge is cloudy, half glassy and half grainy, and the smell is pure peppermint. That texture is the whole point, and a Kendal heritage page says it comes from a blend of solid and granular sugar and from the timing of the sugar-boiler.
What it is
Wikipedia calls Kendal Mint Cake a sugar-based confection flavoured with peppermint, from Kendal in Cumbria, popular with climbers and mountaineers as a source of sugar and therefore energy. The Stricklandgate House page, a Kendal heritage site, gives the ingredients as sugar, glucose, water and peppermint oil. It says the mixture is boiled in copper pans and poured by hand into moulds. Wikipedia pictures a chocolate-coated version, and the heritage page says Quiggin’s introduced chocolate-covered mint cake. Neither page says anything about the name being legally protected, and we found no source that does.
The story of the batch
Both sources tell it as a story and flag it so. Wikipedia says the origin is allegedly a batch of glacier mints that went wrong: in 1869 Joseph Wiper, who had married into the Thompson family of Kendal confectioners, supposedly left the boiled solution overnight, and found it cloudy and solid the next morning. The heritage page says it is claimed that he first produced mint cake after a sugar-boiling that “went wrong”, and adds that the Thompsons had been confectioners in Kendal since the early 1800s from premises at 78 Stricklandgate, and were known for Kendal Butter Toffee, Black Bull’s Eyes and Butter Tablet. Wikipedia says mint cake is based on a traditional recipe known by several names. Our reading: the accident is the sort of tale that attaches itself to any invention, and it is useful to know it is a tale. Neither source cites a document.
Wiper’s after Joseph
Wikipedia says Joseph Wiper emigrated to Canada in 1912 and his great-nephew Robert Wiper took over the family business. It says Robert marketed the cake as an energy snack for famous expeditions. The heritage page agrees that Robert took over in Kendal, and adds that by 1895 Wiper’s had shops in Kendal, Sunderland, Monkswearmouth, South Shields and Lancaster. It says Robert’s son Harry carried on the original recipe. The two pages do not quite agree about the end of Wiper’s, and we say how below.
Three makers still named
Both sources say three companies still make it: Quiggin’s, Romney’s and Wilson’s.
Wikipedia calls Quiggin’s the oldest surviving mint cake company. The family had made confectionery since 1840 on the Isle of Man, and when Daniel Quiggin, one of four sons, moved to Kendal in 1880, the mint cake company was formed.
Wikipedia says Romney’s was founded in 1918 and used an old recipe, with cake sold in Kendal and sent by train to other parts of the north-west. The heritage page says Romney’s was set up in 1937. Which year is right, we cannot tell.
Wikipedia says Wilson’s was founded in 1913 when James Wilson bought a factory in the Stricklandgate area, and that it moved to Cross Lane in 1966. The heritage page says J. E. Wilson began production in 1913. Wikipedia adds that the firm moved to Holme in 2013, that a 2016 report said it had closed, and that the company in fact changed hands and is now run by W McClures Ltd, a family firm established in Windermere in 1945.
Who bought whom
Wikipedia says Romney’s bought Wiper’s Mint Cake in 1987 from Harry Wiper, who had inherited it in 1960 when his father Robert died. The heritage page says Harry retired in 1988 and Romney’s took over Wiper’s. One year apart, two descriptions of the same handover, and we show both.
The expeditions
Wikipedia says Wiper’s Kendal Mint Cake was supplied for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917 led by Sir Ernest Shackleton. The heritage page says that expedition, from 1914, was the first to take Wiper’s. It lists later British Mount Everest expeditions in 1922, 1924, 1933 and 1935 to 1936, a 1931 to 1932 Antarctic expedition aboard the Discovery II, and Everest again in 1953 and 1975.
On 1953 the two sources use different names. Wikipedia says Edmund Hillary and his team carried Romney’s Kendal Mint Cake on the first successful ascent of Everest, and quotes packaging that reads “We sat on the snow and looked at the country far below us … we nibbled Kendal Mint Cake.” The heritage page, whose account is that of Wiper’s, lists the 1953 ascent among its expeditions and says the climbers’ remarks appeared on mint cake wrappers. It does not name the brand. We cannot tell from these pages whose cake went up. Wikipedia credits Quiggin’s for the 1975 Everest expedition; the heritage page gives that year with no brand.
The heritage page adds a detail about Everest supplies: cake was packed in tin-lined wooden cases made by a Kendal firm, each weighing 40 pounds, which it says was the most a Sherpa was allowed to carry, and the cases went by mule 400 miles from Darjeeling to base camp. This is the heritage page’s account, and we have not seen another source for it.
Dates in order
- 1840: the Quiggin family begins confectionery on the Isle of Man, according to Wikipedia.
- 1869: the alleged batch, according to both sources.
- 1880: Daniel Quiggin moves to Kendal, according to Wikipedia.
- 1895: Wiper’s has five shops, according to the heritage page.
- 1912: Joseph Wiper emigrates to Canada, according to Wikipedia.
- 1913: Wilson’s begins, according to both.
- 1914: first expedition to take Wiper’s, according to the heritage page.
- 1918 or 1937: Romney’s, according to Wikipedia and the heritage page respectively.
- 1953: Everest, according to both.
- 1960: Harry Wiper inherits, according to Wikipedia.
- 1987 or 1988: Romney’s takes over Wiper’s, according to Wikipedia and the heritage page.
- 2013: Wilson’s moves to Holme, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
The two sources agree on 1869, the three companies and the polar and Everest list. They differ on when Romney’s began, when it took over Wiper’s, and which brand reached the summit. Our reading: a sweet that has been sold as an expedition food for a century has collected a lot of retelling, and some of it was written by the makers.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia and a heritage page from a Kendal historic house, which is a local account.
Questions a buyer would ask
Which company made it, and which of the three? Is it the white bar or the chocolate-coated one? Where was it made? What is in it? The heritage page gives sugar, glucose, water and peppermint oil as the ingredients, and a pack will tell you more. We give no sizes, no flavours and no prices, and we make no claim about the energy value of any bar.
What we left out
We left out two television appearances and a limited-edition promotion that Wikipedia lists, the heritage page’s account of Wiper’s shops in Canada, and its remarks on tins found in later conflicts, since those are other histories. We left out the sugar’s route to Kendal and a presentation made on one expedition, because we could not source either beyond the single page.
Quick answers
What is Kendal Mint Cake made of? A Kendal heritage page gives sugar, glucose, water and peppermint oil, boiled in copper pans and poured by hand into moulds.
Who invented it? Wikipedia says allegedly Joseph Wiper, in 1869, after a batch of glacier mints was left overnight. It presents this as a story, not a documented fact.
Which companies still make it? According to Wikipedia and the heritage page, three: Quiggin’s, Romney’s and Wilson’s.
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Roam first. Shop later.