Salt Water Taffy
Salt Water Taffy
On one of our visits to the Ross Farm Museum, they were making pulled taffy. The kids loved it so much they wanted to go home and try it.
Here is their recipe.
It makes a huge batch, so I pulled one out of my recipe box.
This is a recipe that I got from a friend in high school. It is the stick-to-your teeth, clamp-your-jaw shut kind of taffy, so please don’t eat it if you have any dental work!
But, it’s a lot of fun to try together.
This recipe makes a giant bag of candy. I would recommend halving the recipe.
It would have been a lot easier to make had I had a candy thermometer, but you can do it without.
Salt Water Taffy
2 C sugar
1 C corn syrup
1 ½ C water
1 ½ tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter
¼ tsp peppermint oil
7 drops of food colouring
Combine sugar, syrup, water and salt in a pot.
Cook slowly stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves.
Continue to cook until hard-ball stage (260degrees) without stirring.
This is where a candy thermometer would have been very helpful! However, it’s not essential.
I had to look up what a hard-ball stage was.
The internet says: This stage can be determined by dropping a spoonful of hot syrup into a bowl of very cold water. In the water, use your fingers to gather the cooled syrup into a ball. If hard-ball stage has been reached, the syrup will hold its ball shape and deform only slightly with very firm pressure.
This took a really long time. Maybe about 45 minutes! I kept trying it in the water, hoping I’d get it right.
I did.
Remvoe from heat
Stir in butter, flavouring and food colouring.
Pour onto a greased cookie sheet.
Cool until comfortable to handle.
Butter hands and gather taffy into a ball
and pull.
When candy is light in colour and gets hard to pull, cut it in fourths.
Pull each piece into long strands about ½ thick.
I found that if you did not do this stage quickly, it hardened and was impossible to cut.
With greased scissors, quickly snip taffy in bite-sized pieces.
Wrap each piece in wax paper.
Make 1 ¼ pounds of candy.
Enjoy!
