We made our own 'pulled taffy' the other week using pure honey and just adding a
few essential oils for flavour and it was so fun! I'll be honest, my kids did not particularly like how it felt on their hands, but I had a lot of fun and they were so proud of their finished products.
If you want to have a go it is super easy. Just boil some honey with a candy thermometer until it reaches 140c for at least five minutes. Then tip it out on a non-stick sheet and use spatulas to move it around until it's cool enough to touch.
At this stage you need to grease your hands with butter and then you just pull and fold, incorporating as much air as you can. When it's only barely warm add a few drops of your
favourite essential oils (we used, peppermint in one batch, lemon in another, orange in a third and left one plain). Essential oils are volatile, so it's best to add them as cool as you can get away with if you want the flavour to last.
When you've twisted and pulled as much as you can and the candy is pretty hard, you can cut it into shapes, wrap it in waxed paper and store in the fridge.
Even though they didn't like getting messy (there were tears over butter on hands) the kids enjoyed watching the process and learning how candy was made.
The second time we made some honeycomb. I adapted
this recipe I found, but boiling the honey again, but I added a mix of 50:50 bicarbonate of soda and
ascorbic acid (vitamin C powder). The acid in the vitamin C ensured we got a good reaction from the baking soda and we had a slightly chewier than I'd have liked honeycomb. I think next time I need to boil the honey a little longer.
Still, the kids really liked this one.
