Homemade Taffy is easy to make and gets the kids involved. Welcome to our Sweet Shoppe! If you are alarmed by red dye, excessive amounts of sugar and underage workers turn away now!
If not, stick around and see how we made loads of homemade taffy!
Related: What kid would not want to make this? How To Make Gummy Candy
Kids love to be involved! They will have a great experience with this hands-on recipe.
Homemade Taffy Ingredients
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 a stick of butter on our hands)
1 teaspoon salt
1 – .21oz (6g) package of unsweetened, fruit-flavored drink mix (like Kool-Aid) (we used cherry)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Steps for making the Homemade Taffy
- Butter a 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 the mixture until the candy thermometer read 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). This takes some time to get it to 250 degrees. Once the temperature 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 a buttered baking pan.
- Allow it to cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes.
Directions For Pulling The Taffy
- 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!!
Homemade Taffy Recipe
Ingredients
- 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 a stick of butter on our hands
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 package unsweetened, fruit-flavored drink mix (like Kool-Aid) (We used Cherry)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Butter a 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 the mixture until the candy thermometer read 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). This takes some time to get it to 250 degrees. Once the temperature 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 a buttered baking pan.
- Allow it to cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes.
- 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 opaquer and lighten in color.
- This takes about 10-15 minutes of pulling.
- Pull into long ropes and cut with buttered scissors.
- Wrap pieces of taffy in pieces of waxed paper and give it a good twist on each end.
Nutrition
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- Reindeer Sugar Cookies your kids will be thrilled with these cute cookies.
Are you laughing as you make your taffy?
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Hi there, I skipped on over here from ohdeedoh. Great tutorial! I don’t know if we can conquer it, but I love knowing that it can be possible. Great blog… I’ll be visiting often!
Wow, I never knew taffy was so simple to make! I even have every ingredient just sitting in my cupboards…waiting for taffy-making perhaps?! I think this will be on the agenda very soon! Thanks so much for this tutorial/recipe!! 😀
It look funtastic!!
All I can think of to say is…YUMMY FUN!!! 🙂
What a great idea! Thank you so much for sharing this idea with us! After some unusual sunny days, the rain has hit Seattle again. I think this will be a big hit for a rainy day activity!
Thanks for sharing! My kids and I are going to make this on Friday, for sure! I love that you use kool-aid to flavor and color it. The possibilities are endless!!
Wow! This looks so fun and messy! I love taffy, and would never have thought of attempting it myself!
🙂
i think i will try with my kids, looks yummy and fun ! i love your pics !
thank for sharing !
Thanks for the fun post! I just had to grin looking at those adorable, cute girls — I am sure they had a blast making taffy! What a great mom to help them with this fun memory making project! Do they deliver?! 😉
can’t wait to give this a try- (i’m a taffy-a-holic)
That looks fabulous! The taffy that I used to love has egg whites in it so I stopped eating it. I think I might have to make this, I miss taffy so much! I’ll be linking.
You probably could spray the hands and I probably would have tried that if I had had some, but it does take alot of butter— I mean 1/2 a stick or more so I think the flavor might be better with the butter.
Looks like so much fun! Instead of using butter on the kids hands could you just spray them with non-stick cooking spray?
Fantastic! It looks like a lot of fun but also a lot of work. How long did it take you? I’d love to give this a try.
this looks so yummy =)