An Easy Recipe For Homemade Pistachio Almond Honeycomb Candy - California Grown (2024)

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An Easy Recipe For Homemade Pistachio Almond Honeycomb Candy - California Grown? ›

Honeycomb toffee, honeycomb candy, sponge toffee, cinder toffee, seafoam, or hokey pokey is a sugary toffee with a light, rigid, sponge-like texture. Its main ingredients are typically brown sugar (or corn syrup, molasses or golden syrup) and baking soda, sometimes with an acid such as vinegar.

Honeycomb toffee, honeycomb candy, sponge toffee, cinder toffee, seafoam, or hokey pokey is a sugary toffee with a light, rigid, sponge-like texture. Its main ingredients are typically brown sugar (or corn syrup, molasses or golden syrup) and baking soda, sometimes with an acid such as vinegar.

The soda reacts with the acid to make bubbles, and the syrup foams. When the cooked syrup is poured out and begins to harden, many of the tiny bubbles are trapped before they can escape (another reason the baking soda is added at the end).

Chewy honeycomb happens when the mixture hasn't been cooked for long enough. This is most common when you don't use a sugar thermometer. If you don't heat the mixture to 149°C the sugar won't achieve the brittleness required for that crumbly, crunchy texture.

Get your sugar types and ratios wrong and the honeycomb collapses or turns sticky. Use too much or too little baking soda and the light and airy puff collapses on you or doesn't even materialize. Luckily, we've got chemistry and science to help us out here and problem solve the art of making honeycomb.

Bee propolis is a sticky, brown substance sometimes known as bee glue. The honey bees gather tree resin, the main ingredient in propolis, from buds and cracks in the bark. The bees add salivary secretions to the resin by chewing on it and add beeswax to the mix. Propolis has a little pollen in it, too.

When the baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, is mixed into the hot sugar, another chemical reaction occurs. The baking soda breaks up, or decomposes, into sodium carbonate, water, and carbon dioxide. The water vapor and carbon dioxide gases get trapped in the sugary mixture, leaving behind these bubbles.

the vinegar, or other acidifier such as ascorbic acid or lemon juice, helps the sugar inversion process. It also helps preserve the mixture.

How it helps Candy Making. Adding cream of tartar when you're making candy helps prevent the creation of sugar crystals. That's why lots of icing, syrup or candy recipes call for it: it makes it so the end product doesn't have large crunchy sugar capsules.

It is filled with white wet looking crystals or chunks. You may mistake this for some kind of pest or disease but the real answer is very simple – it is just honey – crystallized honey in comb.

Why is my honeycomb candy not hardening? ›

If your sugar syrup isn't hot enough, it will make your honeycomb very chewy. The best way to make sure your sugar is at the right temperature is to use a sugar thermometer. The mixture should be at the 'hard ball' stage, which is normally between 121-130 degrees Celsius.

Instead, if it is enjoyable as is, I would suggest just eating it as a toffee like candy. Otherwise, chalk it up to experience and watch the temperature more closely next time. I have a batch of gooey toffee now too. So im just either enjoying it as is or adding bit or chunks of it to my coffee or ice cream.

The mistake most first timers make is to take the syrup off the heat too soon. This makes the honeycomb sticky and doesn't allow it to set correctly. Whole volumes have been written about the science of candy making.

Honeycomb is a sweet confectionery also known as cinder toffee. Discover how to make honeycomb at home, how to store it and what to make with it.

They're all names to describe a candy that's made from combining brown sugar, corn syrup and baking soda. The lattice structure of the candy is caused by the baking soda reacting with the acid, resulting in these little air pockets throughout the candy. These pockets of air make it look like honeycomb!

Honeycomb is basically beeswax and raw honey, so it's 100% edible and safe to eat. The beeswax alone has very little nutritional value, with the exception of trace amounts of Vitamin A. However, since our system does not break down beeswax, it can help the body move food and waste through the gut.

In the US, this candy is usually called honeycomb candy, or sponge candy, or fairy food. Usually this is made with sugar and corn syrup or honey, and baking soda. In the UK, they might be better known as cinder toffee or honeycomb toffee or sponge toffee. This version also widely uses golden syrup or honey.