The sponge toffee a/k/a as cinder toffee instructions couldn’t be easier to follow and the results are consistently wonderful! The honeycomb has an amazing crunchiness and terrific honey flavor. Turn up heat and boil rapidly, without stirring. Keep boiling until mixture turns a dark golden colour, this will take about 5min. If you concentrate that sugar solution enough there is so much sugar in the water, that once you cool it down again, those sugar molecules cannot move around freely anymore. Instead, they will form a ‘glass’. This is a hard, brittle, but smooth, texture. The candy called ‘brittle’ is such as glass, as is toffee. It is also what you’re after when making honeycomb. You want the sugar to be so concentrated that upon cooling it forms a stable glassy structure.

Baking soda causes a chemical reaction giving the brittle its namesake appearance and airy texture. If you accidentally stir the mixture too much after the baking soda is added, don’t panic! The bubbles will be gone, eliminating the honeycomb texture, BUT you just made delicious brittle! Sugar will caramelize when it’s heated to high enough temperatures. During this process, the sugar turns brown and a lot of caramely flavors get formed. When cooking your syrup you might see the sugar solution starting to turn a light brown, however, it will tend to stay quite pale in color. This is ok. More color will be formed in the next step. Making honeycomb truly is a great science experiment. During each of the phases of making honeycomb, cooking, expanding & cooling, a core scientific process is taking place. So let’s have a look at each of these. Step 1: Cooking Sugars Stir the mixture just until it turns a light golden color and is still lightly bubbling and very fluffy.This one will be short and sweet. Very sweet, as it happens – because this post is all about how to make honeycomb. Sometimes also called honeycomb toffee or hokey-pokey (try saying that three times and see if you don’t end up smiling like a crazy person), it’s a crispy candy that’s all bubbles and caramelised sugar and crunch and just… fun. You can have it on its own as a sweet treat or dipped in chocolate if you’re feeling extra indulgent – and it makes a wonderful homemade gift. With its warm golden colour, shiny surface and crazy bubble patterns, it’s perfect for decorating cakes and cupcakes, elevating them from “ pretty” all the way to “ super-elegant-and-impressive-and-everyone-is-totally-jealous-of-your-baking-skills”. Pure sugar syrup made with no artificial additives and natural flavourings. Alcohol-free, suitable for vegan and vegetarian diets. 1 litre PET bottle. Honeycomb toffee can be made without a sugar thermometer, but it won’t be foolproof - simply cook the mixture until you can see it turning a deep golden colour - this should ensure it’s been cooked sufficiently.

Also, honey is a bit more prone to burning than other sugars. Honey contains a lot of fructose. Fructose is know to start to turn brown and burn at far lower temperatures than sucrose as well as glucose. As such, you might need to experiment a little and possibly reign in the honey content slightly. Caramelization of sugar is a complex series of a lot of chemical reactions all taking place at the same. Caramelization happens when pure sugar is heated up to very high temperatures (above the 150°C that you use for honeycomb). However, it is sped up when the pH is acidic or alkaline. By adding baking soda (which is alkaline) to the sugar solution you help accelerate these reactions. As a result, your honeycomb can turn a lot browner. Color turns yellow/whitish If you’re following along with every recipe this week, I’m going to sound like a broken record with some of these tips. While they may be repetitive, they can make all the difference when you’re making your candy, so they’re worth reading over again (and again)! Have everything ready before you begin. You can also add too much baking soda though! If you add too much so many air bubbles are formed that a lot of them will escape from the honeycomb before it has time to set. Also, you run the risk of not all the baking soda reacting and leaving behind a very metallic aftertaste. Step 3: Glass formation Golden syrup– Golden syrup adds authentic flavor to crunchie bars or hokey pokey. But you can also use honey or corn syrup.Hope that helps, if I misunderstood something in your problem or have other thoughts, please do let me know! In a medium, heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, maple syrup, and 1/4 cup cold water. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring, just until the sugar dissolves. After this point, do not stir—you can swirl the pot occasionally if you'd like. Let the mixture come to a boil and cook until a candy or instant-read thermometer registers nearly 300°F and is a dark amber color (this should take 5 to 7 minutes). Glucose syrup itself is bland in flavor and is slightly less sweet than sucrose, making for a moderate sweet honeycomb.