Welcome to our Sweat Sweet Shoppe! If you are alarmed by red dye, excessive amounts of sugar and under age workers turn away now!
If not, stick around and see how we made loads of homemade taffy!
Here's our recipe
Homemade Taffy
2 1/2 cups white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup light corn syrup
1 1/3 cups water
2 tablespoons butter (plus lots extra to butter hands, we probably used over 1/2 of stick of butter on our hands)
1 teaspoon salt
1 - .21oz (6g) package unsweetened, fruit-flavored drink mix (like Kool-Aid) (we used cherry)****however I used Great Value brand from Wal-mart and those were the measurements on the package and it said it made two quarts of drink. On the Kool-Aid packet that makes two quarts it has different amounts (far less) I would still only use 1 packet since it is still flavoring the same amount of water.
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Butter large jelly roll pan or a cookie sheet with sides really well.
In a medium saucepan, stir together the sugar and cornstarch. Add corn syrup, water, butter and salt and stir well until butter is melted. Bring to a boil over medium heat and stop stirring. Cook mixture until candy thermometer read 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). This takes some time to get it to 250 degrees. Once it approaches 250 degrees watch very closely because it cooks quickly at the end. Immediately remove from heat. Carefully stir in vanilla and drink mix. Stir well. We should have stirred ours more-- notice some bits of drink mix (dark spots) on our taffy. Pour mixture onto buttered baking pan. Allow to cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes.
Directions:
Once the taffy has cooled enough to handle, butter hands and begin pulling. (It starts kind of translucent)
Then pull...and pull...butter hands again...pull...
and stretch...pull...more hand buttering...pull...
It will become more opaque and lighten in color depending on the attention span of your workers! This takes about 10-15 minutes of pulling.
Pull into long ropes and cut with buttered scissors.
and cut!
Wrap pieces of taffy in pieces of waxed paper
and give it a good twist on each end.
Finished!
Sweet!!
Updating...
We made the taffy tonight. Turned out great. Thanks for the great idea!
there’s no way i could let my son near those kind of scissors yet , it doesn’t seem like they cut straight anyways.
is the taffy hard? or is it like salt water taffy soft?
I had a babysitter as a child that used to make this with us. Memories! I look forward to doing this with my kids this holiday season. Using Kool Aid is brills!
HELP!
This has not been turning out for me and my girls. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. HOW LONG does it sit in jelly roll pan? We have a sticky stringy awful mess! It boils and bubbles, we don’t stir it and it takes forever to get to 250 degrees. How long do I leave it at 250 degress?
1st time taffy maker that does not want to admit defeat.
Any helpful hints will be appreciated.
We only let it sit long enough in the jelly roll pan to cool just enough so we could touch it. It does take some time for it to get to 250 — but not forever, so I am wondering if you have a bad thermometer. It actually happens that they go bad. I hope this help! Please let me know!
This is such a great idea and I think I will try it soon ♥
Cherry and Fruit punch turned out great! Grape flavor was very bitter. I don’t know if I did something wrong, (other than cooked it a little hot and got hard candy). Otherwise, easy to make and lots of fun.
Also, we used pizza cutters instead of scissors and that worked out great. The first time I made it I let my thermometer sit on the bottom of the pan (never used one before) and ours was a sticky mess too. But, when I learned to not set it on the bottom, the temperature was actually right and it turned out great.
FAILED!!!! majorly failed. its a sticky mess. it didnt harden or anything! not nearly enough to cut it. D:
This looks awesome! Can’t wait to try it. I even have all the ingredients in my cupboard already.
Does it turn out hard or soft like saltwater taffy because I tried another recipy and it was terrible after a day?
We’re going to do this for one of the “art” projects for my daughter’s “arts and crafts” birthday party today, but are going to cook it in the microwave. Hadn’t thought about using kool-aide before! Should be fun!
At first I was ready to leave a really bad comment because the recipe was like water and it was just not thickening. But as time went by- lots of time- the boiling syrup thickened and started to look much like toffee my dad used to make for us. I used sweeto syrup concentrate for the colouring and I didn’t even need a candy thermometer as the stage in water makes threads that are pliable, that’s when its perfect and it looks and tastes great, my 3 year old and I are about to start stretch it. Wish me luck!!!