cinder toffee Cinder toffee is rather easier on the teeth than normal toffee. The foaming action produces a sea of bubbles in the toffee that make it easier to chomp through. Ingredients: 450g (1lb) Granulated Sugar 300ml (1/2 pint) Water 3 tbsp Golden Syrup 50g (2 oz) Butter 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda 4 tbsp White Vinegar Method: Grease a shallow baking tray (approx. 9 x 5 inch). Put the butter, water and vinegar into a large heavy pan and heat gently, stirring until the butter has melted. ADD the sugar, golden syrup and allow to fully dissolve. Bring to the boil. Continue to boil without stirring until the mixture reaches the 'hard crack' stage, this is about 138C/280F on a sugar thermometer, if you have one. Otherwise you can test the mixture by dropping a few drops into a cup of cold water where the toffee should solidify and form hard, brittle threads*. Remove from heat. Add the baking soda and watch it froth up*. Stir the mixture until the bubbles subside a little and pour into the tray. When set but still warm, mark into squares. Break into pieces when cold* (You may need a hammer for this, but be careful and watch your fingers!) Store in an airtight tin if you can't eat it all at once. Form hard, brittle threads When sugar solutions (syrups) are boiled they begin to lose water, the amount lost affects how they will behave when they cool down. A small water loss gives only a thickened syrup, but if a lot is lost then the solution cannot hold all the sugar so a solid product is formed. By varying the water content different effects can be achieved. The temperature the solution reaches is related to the amount of water present, so a thermometer is an easy way of telling if you have reached the desired stage. Otherwise, you have to physically check the solution by cooling a small amount in some water. Froth up Bicarbonate of soda reacts with acidic liquids to produce bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. This general reaction is often used in baking to help a mixture rise. Soda bread, scones and many sponge cakes all rely on this reaction to produce a light, edible morsel rather than a dense brick. In this case tartaric acid acts as the acid, but other acids include lemon juice, vinegar, or lactic acid in sour milk and yoghurt. Baking powder is a dry mixture of bicarbonate and acids, which reacts when wet. Break into pieces when cold Toffee is mostly just sugar, but it is in quite a different form to the sugar crystals that you have at the start of the recipe. As the sugar crystals dissolve into the hot liquid, the sugar molecules in the crystals break apart from each other to produce a sugar solution. As the mixture boils it loses water and becomes thicker. When it starts to cool, the liquid becomes too thick too quickly to allow the sugar molecules to join up into large groups again. Instead of a granular product that crumbles in the mouth (like fudge), we end up with a glassy structure that is very chewy. Take home tip Raising agents such as baking powder and bicarbonate of soda start to give off gas as soon as they become wet. So if you are making cakes or scones get them into the oven as fast as possible, otherwise they will have lost some of their gas and will not rise as well as they could. << Go Back