[Cf. Da. suikerbakker, G. zuckerbäcker.]
† 1. A confectioner. Obs.
1650. Comenius’ Janua Ling., § 408. The Sugar baker make’s readie sweet-meats.
2. A sugar-refiner. Obs. exc. Hist.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xxii. (Roxb.), 281. The coat of Armes of the Sugar bakers or Refiners.
1727. De Foe, Eng. Tradesm., iv. (1841), I. 26. I have seen a confectioner turn a sugar-baker.
1727. Sheridan, Sch. Scand., II. ii. Her mother was a Welsh milliner and her father a sugarbaker at Bristol.
1834. Brit. Husb., I. 426. Sugar-bakers’ scum is the skimmings of the sugar during the operation of refining.
1836–7. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Tales, x. Mr. Gabriel Parsons … was a rich sugar-baker, and mistook rudeness for honesty.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade.
So Sugar-bakehouse, a sugar-refinery; Sugar-bakery, (a) a sugar-refinery; (b) the occupation of a sugar-refiner; Sugar-baking vbl. sb.
1815. Ann. Reg., Chron., 91. A *sugar bakehouse.
1794. Debates U.S. Congress, 5 May (1849), 635. There were only seventeen *sugar-bakeries in the United States.
1860. Thackeray, Lovel, i. (1861), 43. He had embarked in many businesses besides the paternal sugar-bakery.
1714. Fr. Bk. of Rates, 103. The said Manufacture of *Sugar-Baking and Refining in France.
1805. Forsyth, Beauties Scot., III. 36. There are few manufactures here [sc. Greenock] carried on … excepting of cordage … sugar-baking, and some few others.
1902. Encycl. Brit., XXXIII. 48/1. In former days, when refining sugar or ‘sugar baking’ was supposed to be a mystery.
