Honeycomb Recipe - melissassouthernstylekitchen.com (2024)

FAQs

Why is my honeycomb chewy but not crunchy? ›

Chewy honeycomb happens when the mixture hasn't been cooked for long enough. This is most common when you don't use a sugar thermometer. If you don't heat the mixture to 149°C the sugar won't achieve the brittleness required for that crumbly, crunchy texture.

Bees make honeycombs by first secreting a wax-like substance from glands on their abdomen. This wax is then formed into hexagons that make up the shape of the honeycomb. The bees then fill the honeycomb with the nectar they collect from flowers and use enzymes in their saliva to turn the nectar into honey.

If your sugar syrup isn't hot enough, it will make your honeycomb very chewy. The best way to make sure your sugar is at the right temperature is to use a sugar thermometer. The mixture should be at the 'hard ball' stage, which is normally between 121-130 degrees Celsius.

White vinegar – one of the things that makes this candy unique is the light and airy texture of the toffee. We have the vinegar, in part, to thank for that! Vinegar reacts with the baking soda in the recipe to form little bubbles of carbon dioxide that give the honeycomb candy its airy, crisp texture.

If the honeycomb structure is only slightly damaged, a high-temperature epoxy glue may be used to repair it.

Choose the best honeycomb

It's all good unless the melted sugar is cooked for too long, when it will burn and the bitterness detracts from the acid-sweet pleasures expected. If you undercook it, it will not set properly.

Honeycomb is basically beeswax and raw honey, so it's 100% edible and safe to eat. The beeswax alone has very little nutritional value, with the exception of trace amounts of Vitamin A. However, since our system does not break down beeswax, it can help the body move food and waste through the gut.

Honey and its comb are edible and offer numerous health benefits, such as fighting infections and improving heart health. Honeycomb may also boost liver function and serve as a sugar alternative for people with diabetes. That said, honeycomb remains rich in sugars, so should be consumed with moderation.

The three traditional honeycomb production techniques, expansion, corrugation, and moulding, were all developed by 1901 for non-sandwich applications. For decorative applications the expanded honeycomb production reached a remarkable degree of automation in the first decade of the 20th century.

The mistake most first timers make is to take the syrup off the heat too soon. This makes the honeycomb sticky and doesn't allow it to set correctly. Whole volumes have been written about the science of candy making. All you need to know, however, is to make toffee the syrup needs to be heated to “hard crack” stage.

Why is my homemade honeycomb chewy? ›

Why Is My Homemade Honeycomb Chewy ? The syrup is taken off the heat too soon, it's a common mistake and one I made! Underheating the sugar makes the honeycomb sticky so it won't set correctly. Keep your eye on the sugar thermometer and make sure the temperature reaches at least 146 degrees C or 295 degrees F.

So if you're honeycomb was not hard enough, maybe you didn't cook it long enough. You should keep stirring the whole time too, keep it moving and keep it on a mid-level heat. I get impatient too, but I have started to realise that with sugar, it's all about slow and steady, otherwise you won't get the right result.

At the last second, baking soda is added and reacts to the high heat in the pan, causing the mixture to foam and swell as carbon dioxide bubbles are released. These fizzing bubbles are caught in the final product as it quickly cools - leading to the effect for which the dessert is named for, a honeycomb of sorts.

Regionally it may be referred to as sponge candy, sea foam, fairy food candy, or old fashioned puff in the US, and in Britain, it is often called Cinder Toffee with variances of puff candy in Scotland, Yellowman in Northern Ireland and Sponge Toffee in Canada.

Temperature – allow the sugar syrup to reach the required temperature of 149°C known as hard crack. Taking the syrup off the heat too soon is a common mistake, causing the honeycomb to be sticky.

The baking soda (also known as bicarbonate of soda) heats up and when it does that, it releases a gas that gets trapped in the caramelized honey and sugar. This results in bubbles that resembles actual honeycomb from bees! Why is my Honeycomb Candy chewy? This is a result of the mixture not cooking long enough.

The wax combs are typically chewy and will ball up in your mouth similar to gum, some people spit out the comb but most will swallow it whole as it is completely safe to eat.

It is perfectly safe (and delicious) to consume both the honey and the waxy hexagonal containers of the comb. In fact, the added chewy texture of the comb is a bonus. Honeycomb varies in taste (just like honey) depending on the environment and which flowers the bees predominantly pollinated to produce nectar.

Honeycomb typically contains raw honey, which is sweet, and the beeswax itself, which is chewy and has a similar mouthfeel to chewing gum. You can eat pieces of honeycomb by themselves as a sweet snack.