SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
How Best to Make Honeycomb Candy
FoodCrumbles.com
June, 2021
What is honeycomb candy?
01.
A super light, airy and crunchy sugary snack. The open texture might remind you of 'real' honeycomb.
The Ingredients
02.
Sugar
+
Baking soda
Which sugar?
Some water
+
We tested 5 combinations, almost all worked!
The Ingredients
02.
FAILURE: 100% Sucrose (regular sugar)
Grainy Not airy at all Too white Crumbly, not crackly
Conclusion: you need a syrup to prevent crystallization
The Ingredients
02.
SUCCESS: 100 w% corn (glucose) syrup
33 w% sucrose + 66 w% corn (glucose) syrup
Super simple
Great airy structure
The Ingredients
02.
SUCCESS:
33w% sucrose + honey
Dark color, strong, well developed flavor
33w% sucrose + pouring syrup
You can taste the honey!
What does baking soda do?
Baking soda = sodium bicarabonate. It reacts with hot sugars and creates carbon dioxide gas! This creates all those beautiful air bubbles in your honeycomb.
Science Intermezzo
The Process
02.
Step 1: Bring sugars to the boil and continue to cook until they are 150C (300F)
Use a thermometer!
Why 150C (300F)?
By cooking the sugars you evaporate water. At 150C you've evaporated so much water that the syrup is no longer liquid at room temperature. Instead, it's crunchy and crackly. Exactly what you want for honeycomb!
Science Intermezzo
Your sugar syrup should no longer flow at room temperature!
The Process
02.
Step 2: Take off the heat and stir in baking soda
Be careful! The mix is and will bubble up quite a bit!
The Process
02.
Step 3: Pour the honeycomb onto or in a heat proof tray or tin that you've covered with parchment paper.
Wait...
Until it's cooled down to room temperature, then remove and enjoy!
Storage
03.
Store in an air tight container, away from moisture.
Or your honeycomb will slowly 'melt' away!
Why does it 'melt' away?
Finished honeycomb is very hygroscopic. That is, it attracts water from the air and does so quite rapidly thanks to all those air pockets spread throughout. The moisture 'dissolves' some of the sugar, making it sticky and chewy. All the crunch is gone!
Science Intermezzo