Sugar is magic.
Seriously.
Take some sugar, water and honey, heat it up to 300°F, whisk in some baking soda and you end up with some killer honeycomb.
As long as you have a reliable candy thermometer you can make this. It’s so easy.
I used a recipe from my guy Jamie Oliver because, well, his recipes never let me down, I needed to bring something to a dinner with my friends, and I had all of the ingredients in at home already.
And it required very little knee work which right now is a huge bonus. Recovery sucks, you guys.
Equipment-wise, all you need for this lovely confection is a tall pot (very important), candy thermometer, whisk, baking sheet and something to melt chocolate in.
Probably things you already have around your kitchen. See how easy I make this?
Sugar is one of those things that will seem like it’s cooking slowly, then will make a sudden jump in temperature so you’ll need to keep your eye on it. On the plus side you will get to observe the different colours of the sugar as it becomes a caramel.
Maybe it’s my inner baking nerd, but I think it’s pretty cool.
The sugar will slowly colour, then start bubbling, then slow down as it makes its way to 300°F.
When you get to the stage where you add the baking soda, work quickly and carefully. It will bubble up profusely (hence your need for a tall pot) and you want to get the baking soda incorporated as quickly as possible.
Pour it onto your baking sheet, let it set, and you have perfect honeycomb.
Break it all up (that’s the really fun part 😉 ) and then if you want, cover it in chocolate.
I recommend it. It makes it taste like a Crunchie bar, which is one of my favourite English candy bars. You can’t buy them here anymore, but at least now you can make your own!
Chocolate Covered Smashed Honeycomb
Ingredients
- 2 heaped tsp. baking soda
- 2 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 heaped tbsp. honey
- 1/2 cup water
- Melted bittersweet chocolate, for dipping
Directions
- Step 1 Line a shallow baking pan with a sheet of parchment paper. Measure out your baking soda so that it’s ready to go — you’ll need to work quickly once the sugar reaches the right temperature.
- Step 2 Put the sugar, honey and water into a medium sized, tall pan. Stir together and heat to 300°F on a sugar(candy) thermometer. Whatever you do, do NOT touch or taste the caramel, as it will burn.
- Step 3 As soon as the caramel reaches the right temperature, turn the heat off and add the baking soda, whisking quickly and carefully to combine it. It will froth up.
- Step 4 Carefully pour the mixture out onto your lined tray right away, then gently tilt the tray a little from side to side to get the mixture to spread out into a fairly even layer. Leave to one side to cool, the crack it into bite-sized pieces. Dip into melted chocolate and place in fridge to set.
