Saltwater taffy will be forever linked in our minds to vacations at the beach, hot weather, and long stretches of free time. We can't remember ever having it outside of that context! It's been years since we had a vacation like this, and as such, haven't gotten a saltwater taffy fix in quite some time. Then we started wondering: can we make this vacation treat at home?
Craving: Saltwater Taffy
It turns out that, yes, you can! We found several recipes around the web, all of which call for basic ingredients that we can easily find at the grocery store. The most difficult step seems to be cooking the sugar to the hardball stage. After that, all we have to do is find a few willing volunteers to help us pull the taffy and get that signature chewy-soft texture!
Wouldn't it be fun to get some friends together for an old-fashioned taffy pull? With supervision during the boiling sugar stage, this could also be a great activity to do with kids. And with so many different extracts and flavorings available these days, we could really have fun making several different kinds and colors of taffy!
Here are the recipes we found. They're all essentially the same, with a few tweaks and different bits of advice:
• Saltwater Taffy from Coconut & Lime
• Saltwater Taffy from the Science of Cooking
• Saltwater Taffy from ABC News
We really can't wait to give this candy a try! Have you ever made saltwater taffy?
Related: Good Question: Candy Recipes for County Fair Time?
(Image: Flickr member Biggunben licensed under Creative Commons)
Tags
Sweets, Summer, Travel, candymaking, candy making, sugar work, saltwater taffy, taffy, working with sugarRelated Links
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I think the beach context is necessary. I'm not a big fan of taffy any other time, but when I've had it out on Cape Cod it really hit the spot. Love the beach plum flavor.
- Amelia at Gradually Greener
view GreenCayennes's profile
I made taffy at a friend's birthday party when I was a kid, maybe 10 years old? It was fun and delicious, old-timey wholesome fun.
view Emily G.'s profile
Heat and humidity are not friends of taffy so best to wait for a cool dry day.
That being said, I made hard candy this morning even thought it's warm and humid outside. I lowered the AC temp last night, dusted all sides of the candy as soon as it cooled, wrapped it in the wax paper wrappers from the candy store, put it in a ziplock bag and suctioned out the air. They've kept fine so far.
view Merry123's profile
yummmy, there was a great candy store in kennebunkport, Maine that had every flavor you could ask for, I'd give anything to go back there!
view youenjoymyself's profile
somethings are better left to professionals
view brianmac's profile