Friday, September 7, 2012

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.







31 comments:

  1. Ooooo, I am so glad you linked this up at Foodie Friday! I love salt water taffy, but I've never made my own. These look great! Christmas presents!!

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    1. That would be such a cute gift, could make them red and white peppermint ones.

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  2. I was just talking about trying to make my own salt water taffy a couple weeks ago - Crazy! Your looks really Good - straight off the pier :)

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  3. These look great! I tried making taffy once, and it was a major failure. But your recipe seems easy enough that maybe I'll give it another try.

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    Replies
    1. Candy is a fickle thing...Try try again is my motto :) Hope it works for you!

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  4. I love this!! How easy!! My name is Cindy and I blog over at Vegetarianmamma.com I wanted to invite you to link up your recipe at our Gluten Free Fridays Recipe Link up party! It happens every Friday and we'd love to have you join us with some of your awesome recipes! You can find this week's link up here: http://vegetarianmamma.com/glutenfree-fridays-recipe-party-4/ It doesn't mean that you have to be a gluten free bloggers. If you have some recipes on your blog that are gluten free that counts! :) Many recipes are naturally gluten free.
    Thanks, Cindy :)

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    Replies
    1. I joined your party, added some recipes. Thanks for the invite! Hope you will join my link party, opens ever sunday and runs through saturday. My brother is a gluten free eater and I always welcome recipes to share with him!

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  5. I love salt water taffy, and we have a mermaid birthday coming up that it would go perfect with! Thanks!

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  6. I saw these on Facebook floating around somewhere yesterday and thought they looked amazing! Thanks for joining Foodie Friends Friday! Please come back and VOTE on Sunday!

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  7. I'm not a fan of saltwater taffy, but my husband would die over this recipe. Might try it out just for him :-) Thanks for the recipe.

    p.s.
    New follower through twitter! Hope you can follow me back!
    http://lifeasavermontmom.blogspot.com/
    https://twitter.com/vermont_mom

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    1. Thanks for following, I shall check yours out for sure!

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  8. What a unique recipe to post. I would like to try this. Was it is to make?

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    1. I did not have any problems with it. I recommend reading the original post from the blog link provided in the post to see step by step pictures. It took about 45 minutes to cook and pull total. (10 of it was pulling). For me the worst part was wrapping each piece, just tedious lol. If you have a candy thermometer it is not too bad at all.

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  9. Wow! These look amazing! I'm sure they will be a hit at the party. Thanks for linking up at the Make My Saturday Sweet blog hop!

    Tina - mom of 4 and author of 5 blogs
    http://abooksandmore.blogspot.com

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  10. I too am a new follower and found you on the Make Saturday Sweet blog hop--looking forward to perusing your blog and gleaning some yummy recipes!
    -Rachael from The Rehomesteaders
    http://therehomesteaders.blogspot.com/

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  11. Your taffy and macaroons look amazing! Thanks for the recipes :)
    -Dana, blogs at http://celiackiddo.wordpress.com

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  12. This is so not a recipe I need to see! I LOVE salt water taffy! Thank you so much for sharing this at Mom's Test Meal Mondays!

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  13. My son loves taffy, and this color is beautiful! Thanks for sharing at Church Supper. Have a blessed week & come back soon ~EMM

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  14. My family used to make taffy every new years eve at my grandmas house. It was great because it was one of the few times everyone would do something together. We would all pair up and pull the taffy till it was done. It is one of my favorite memories at my grandma's house. I wish we still did it , but I don't have the authority that grandma had so I can't get everyone to do it :(
    Thanks for linking up to Friday Fascinations! Don't forget to come back this week and join the party!

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    Replies
    1. Awwww that is such a wonderful memory, I bet doing that together was a ton of fun! I pulled this all by my little lonesome, and it was doable for sure, but definitely not fun, just kinda boring lol. Thanks for stopping by!

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  15. Thanks for linking these up on my blog Lindsay!

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  16. Thanks for the recipe, I've always been a big fan of candy, especially saltwater taffy. I used to drive to this little shop that was a good 30 minutes from my house just to buy them, but it closed down a few months ago. This recipe makes very similar ones to that shop I'm so happy i found it!

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