Honeycomb Candy Hokey Pokey Nigella Lawson Food

HOKEY POKEY

Steps:

• Put the sugar and syrup into a saucepan and stir together to mix. You can't stir once the pan's on the heat, though.
• Place the pan on the heat and let the mixture first melt and then turn to goo and then a bubbling mass the color of maple syrup - this will take 3 minutes or so.
• Off the heat, whisk in the baking soda and watch the syrup turn into a whooshing cloud of aerated pale gold. Turn this immediately onto a piece of baking parchment or greased foil.
• Leave until set and then bash at it, so that it splinters into many glinting pieces.

HONEYCOMB CANDY (HOKEY POKEY) - NIGELLA LAWSON

Steps:

• Stir sugar and syrup together in a cold pan. Put over medium-high heat; from this point, do NOT stir, but only swirl the pan. Cook until golden and thick, and bubbles are beginning to mount.
• Turn off heat and add baking soda. Whisk vigorously. Pour onto a silicone liner (Silpat) and let stand 15 minutes. Smash into large pieces.

HONEYCOMB

Steps:

• Butter a 20cm square tin. Stir the caster sugar and golden syrup together in a deep saucepan over a gentle heat until the sugar has melted. Try not to let the mixture bubble until the sugar grains have disappeared.
• Once completely melted, turn up the heat a little and simmer until you have an amber coloured caramel (this won't take long), then as quickly as you can, turn off the heat, tip in the bicarbonate of soda and beat in with a wooden spoon until it has all disappeared and the mixture is foaming. Scrape into the tin immediately - be careful, the mixture will be very hot.
• The mixture will continue bubbling in the tin, simply leave it and in about 1 hr-1 hr 30 mins the honeycomb will be hard and ready to crumble or snap into chunks.

HONEYCOMB BRITTLE

Steps:

• Coat a 12-by-17-inch rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray. Bring sugar, honey, and water to a boil in a medium saucepan, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-high. Cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reaches 300 degrees. Remove from heat, add baking soda, and stir once with whisk, just until incorporated. Gently pour mixture onto baking sheet without spreading. Let cool. Break into pieces.

HONEYCOMB CANDY - AKA HOKEY-POKEY OR SPONGE CANDY

Steps:

• In a saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, honey, and water, and using a wooden spoon, stir constantly over low heat until the sugar is fully dissolved.
• Put candy thermometer into the mixture to monitor temperature, increase the heat and boil mixture to exactly 270 degrees F (132C).
• Reduce heat to as low as possible and maintain the temperature 270F for exactly 15 minutes.
• It is very important that the temperature of the mixture does not fluctuate; if the temperature begins to rise, remove the pan from heat occasionally to reduce the heat.
• After the temperature has been maintained for 15 minutes, remove the pan from heat, take out the thermometer, and allow the bubbles to subside.
• Using a wooden spoon, quickly stir in finely sifted baking soda.
• Immediately and quickly pour the mixture into a large oiled baking dish.
• (Please note, important: the pouring step requires strength and you'll be handling extremely hot liquids; if you're not strong and agile enough you might want to leave that step to a strong and able assistant.) When candy has completely cooled, remove from pan and break into pieces.
• Many lovers of honeycomb candy like to coat the pieces in chocolate- you can dunk the pieces into melted chocolate if you like.