Adventures in toffee

Until last weekend the only experience I'd had with candy making, or molten sugar of any kind, was the caramel and caramelized sugar decorations I made for my cupcakes for CupcakeCamp Ottawa. I had always been intimidated and figured that anything requiring constant and precise temperature monitoring just wasn't going to work for me. I was pleasantly surprised. It's kind of amazing what some sugar, corn syrup, water, and cream can turn into.

First attempt with a candy thermometer



Salted caramel

 
This past weekend I decided to break the thermometer out of the cupboard again and try my hand at some sponge toffee. If you're unfamiliar, it's the delicious crunchy hole-filled toffee in the middle of a Crunchie bar. In other parts of the world you may hear it referred to as honeycomb, sea foam, or hokey pokey. Sugar, corn syrup, water, vanilla, and baking soda - that's all it takes.

Two friends in the office were declaring their love of the stuff last week so I decided to make some for one of their birthdays. I was amazed at how easy the process was and how much candy I ended up with from so few ingredients. The 9x13 pan suggested in the recipe (from Canadian Living) barely contained it all.



Mmm...sugar



To make the treat a little more gift appropriate I decided to dip the pieces in melted semisweet chocolate.

Finished product

The resulting confection got rave reviews in the office the next day. As a result, I decided to add sponge toffee to the list of treats available from the Holiday Sweatshop. Let's hope every batch turns out as well!