# Honeycomb toffee

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## Summary

Honeycomb toffee, cinder toffee or puff candy is a crisp toffee full of bubbles, made by adding bicarbonate of soda to hot sugar syrup.

## Description

Honeycomb toffee is simple to make. It is a crisp, golden toffee riddled with tiny bubbles, so it shatters when you bite it and then melts away. In Britain it is often called cinder toffee.
How the bubbles get there
The main ingredients are brown sugar or a syrup such as golden syrup, corn syrup or molasses, and bicarbonate of soda. Sometimes an acid such as vinegar is added too. When the bicarbonate of soda is stirred into the hot syrup, it produces carbon dioxide gas, either by reacting with the acid or simply by breaking down in the heat. The syrup is so thick that the gas is trapped, and the whole mixture foams up. The sponge like structure forms while the sugar is still liquid, and then the toffee sets hard around the bubbles.
Because the recipe is so simple and quick, honeycomb can be made at home. See how to make honeycomb toffee.
Cinder toffee
In Britain the traditional name is cinder toffee. It is usually cooked a little longer than plain honeycomb, often with golden syrup, which gives a richer, more caramelised flavour and a texture that is both crunchy and a little chewy.
A sweet with many names
The same sweet goes by many names. It is:
cinder toffee or honeycomb in Britainpuff candy in Scotlandhokey pokey in New Zealand, where it is stirred into hokey pokey ice creamsponge toffee in Canadasponge candy in parts of the northern United States, where it is usually covered in chocolatefairy food or angel food candy in WisconsinTurkish honey in Hungary, where it is sold at town fairs
In Japan a version called karumeyaki, from the Portuguese word for caramel, is often sold by street vendors, and in South Korea a similar sweet, dalgona, was a popular street snack in the 1970s and 1980s.
Honeycomb in chocolate
Honeycomb is also made commercially, sold in small blocks or covered in chocolate. In Britain there is the Crunchie bar, and in Australia the Violet Crumble.
Its Irish cousin
In Northern Ireland, the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle is associated with yellowman, a crunchy, golden honeycomb toffee: see yellowman.

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