sponge candy, or honeycomb
January 5, 2012 § 11 Comments
I’ve been bitten by the candy making bug! I made another batch of caramels the other day and I’ve been wanting to dabble in more candy-making ever since! It’s the holiday season and we’ve received several packages of chocolate covered sponge candy from friends back home. It’s sometimes called honeycomb or sponge toffee, but Buffalonians call it sponge candy, and I imagine it’s something that I won’t be able to shake. Much like my nasally ’A’. Or my apparently insanely bizarre pronunciation of the word bison.
Sponge candy might seem like a rather intimidating confection, but in fact it’s easier than walking. Maybe even easier, if you’re a huge klutz like myself. And it’s addictive. I know I said homemade caramels were addicting, but this honeycomb, man, it takes the cake. The flavor of honey really comes through great, and the slight saltiness of baking soda is a nice contrast, similar to the way salted caramels work. Honestly, prepare yourself to make several batches of this, because if your family’s even a little like mine, you’ll need it.
Sponge Candy/Honeycomb
adapted from Cherrapeno
5 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp baking soda
Combine the sugar and honey in a large pot, the baking soda will cause everything to foam up and increase in volume. Whisk this mixture over heat until the sugar has melted and continue to cook it until it reaches a nice golden color. Then add the baking soda and whisk, letting everything foam up and then quickly pour onto a silicone or parchment lined baking sheet.
Allow to cool and then break into pieces to serve!
it looks so simple! I’ve been wantig to try it for a long time
Isn’t it great? I hope you can give it a try cause it’s quite delicious!
We also call it cinder toffee in the UK
not sure if that’s a northern thing or what…
Thats so cool! I love all the different names for food that there are. Thanks!
Hm, would you be able to cut it? Like for the base of a cake, or does it break?
It’s quite brittle, so you wouldn’t be able to cut it, but you could always pour it into the pan that you’ll be using for the cake so that it forms a base.
I’ve just made some and it’s gorgeous! although I didn’t remember honeycomb being so sticky in your mouth once you started chewing it.
My bubbles are far from being as big as yours, I think I shouldn’t have kept whisking when it foamed. Never mind, that’ll just be an excuse to make some again!
Thanks for the recipe
xx
Isn’t it just lovely? Actually it might be better if your bubbles are smaller, that’s more like a traditional sponge candy, I recently learned!
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I was really disappointed by this recipe. I thought I would love it because I adore honey and toffee. But when it came to it, I felt eh… My friends thought the taste was good, but I thought it was almost too sweet and too salty. But I figure I’ll play with the ratios a little. My bigger problem was that it didn’t get hard. It did firm but not crunchy in the least. I tried the freezer but that was just a temporary fix. Any suggestions? Maybe it’s just the warm weather?
I don’t want to give up on something that seems so great, and others have had good results with.
Oh Darrah, I’m really sorry you didn’t get good results with the recipe. I’m curious as to whether the moisture content in your area is higher than in mine, because I think that that’d really affect the moisture level of candy. Sweets are finicky like that.