The sweets, known as Halwat El-Moulid, are sugared candies, decorated with colourful paper and shaped after a bride, Al-Arosa, and a horse, Al-Hossan, which are often bought for girls and boys respectively.
In recent years, vendors said sales have declined because of higher ingredient prices and competition from cheaper plastic dolls imported from China.
“We were buying sugar three years ago for 3 or 4 pounds (RM0.69 or RM0.92). Now we are buy it for 9 or 10 pounds (RM2.08 or RM2.31),” sweet maker Rabie Abed Rabbo, 65, said in his small workshop in the city of Tanta.
The price of one kilogram of bride and horse sweets this year ranges from 25 to 75 pounds (RM5.78 to RM17.33) depending on weight, size, and quality. In previous years, the sweets would fetch a maximum of around 50 Egyptian pounds (RM11.56).
Egypt has seen price rises for commodities since the Egyptian pound was significantly devalued after being unpegged from the US dollar in 2016.
The delicacies are made of a sugar and water solution with lemon salt, which is poured into moulds and frozen. They are only made and sold a few weeks before the Mawlid al-Nabi – the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.
Historians say the bride and the horse figures appeared at the time of al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh, one of the rulers of Egypt during the Fatimid era, when marriages often occurred to coincide with the celebrations.
The Prophet Muhammad’s birthday is celebrated on the 12th of Rabi’ al-awwal, the third month of the Islamic calendar. This year the celebration falls on December 1.