Peppermint Salt Water Taffy

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You know, my blog posts are usually fully of witty (or not so witty) repartee, but today, I just don't have any.  Nothing.  Nada. Zip.  Between my 1 year old's hour and 15 minute long well check appointment this morning, along with like 7 shots for him (poor guy...), and my three year old's desire to contradict and flout every thing I tell him to do, I just have nothing to say.

 I am doing a lil' peanut circus theme birthday party for my son's first birthday, so I thought this would be something you would see at a circus.  I have never made it, it looked like fun, so I thought, what the heck, why not.  So, that's all the talking I have, on to the recipe.

Oh yea, and they taste pretty stinking good.  They worked out well for me.

I got this recipe from a blog called Boiling Sugar.

They have an excellent step by step picture tutorial for doing this, so please check it out in the link above before trying it.  I only changed one thing, and that was the addition of some baking soda, otherwise, the credit goes to them.

PEPPERMINT SALT WATER TAFFY
(Adapted slightly from Boiling Sugar's Salt Water Taffy)

Ingredients

•  2 cups sugar
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• flavoring (extracts, oils, gourmet liquid flavorings)
• coloring (optional)

Equipment

• Pastry brush
• 3-4 quart heavy saucepan
• buttered, chilled cookie sheet
• candy thermometer
• wooden spoon or plastic spatula
• moderate upper body strength, or a stretching partner

 Directions

1. Mix together sugar, salt, and cornstarch in the saucepan.
2. Use a wooden spoon or plastic heat safe spatula to stir in the corn syrup, water, and butter. Place the saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves.
3. Continue stirring until mixture begins to boil, then let cook, undisturbed, until it reaches about 265° F, no hotter. Wash down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in warm water while the syrup cooks to dissolve any sugar crystals.  When it first starts to boil really well, it will boil up very high, so watch for that and remove from heat for a second to prevent boil over (like what happened to me).
3. Remove the saucepan from the heat, let it cool down  and add baking soda, food coloring, and flavoring (I used 1/4 tsp peppermint extract and it had a nice light peppermint flavor).  The baking soda will cause it to form tiny bubbles, this will add to the chewy texture, this is in place of glycerine, which some recipes use, but I opt not to.  Stir gently, then pour onto a shallow greased cookie sheet to cool.  (Don't line it with foil like me unless you are going to butter it first, unlike me.)
4. When the taffy is cool enough to handle, grease your hands with butter and pull the taffy until it's light in color and has a satiny gloss. You can have a friend help with this step, which should take about 10 minutes.  Add additional butter to your hands as needed.  I went through about a tablespoon or two.  Once you start seeing parallel ridges in the rope, you are getting close.  The candy should be almost room temperature when its done being pulled, and it will be a fairly good workout to pull it by the end as compared to the beginning.
5. Roll or pull the pulled taffy into a long rope, about 1/2 inch in diameter, and cut it with greased scissors or a butter knife into 1-inch-long pieces. Let the pieces sit for about half an hour before wrapping them in wax paper or plastic wrap and twisting the ends of the wrapper. This is what they look like after I cut them.  A beautiful soft but bright blue color.