Twig Taffy Recipes

Steps:

• In a large saucepan, stir together the sugar and cornstarch. Add the butter, salt, corn syrup and water; mix well. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to mix in butter. Heat to 275 degrees F (134 degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped from a spoon forms hard but pliable threads.
• Remove from heat, and stir in the vanilla, flavored extract and food coloring. Pour into a greased 8x8 inch baking dish. When cooled enough to handle, remove candy from the pan, and pull until it loses its shine and becomes stiff. Pull into ropes, and use scissors to cut into 1 inch pieces. Wrap each piece in waxed paper.

Steps:

• Coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray; set aside. In a medium nonstick saucepan, combine sugar, 1 cup water, corn syrup, cornstarch, glycerin, and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon to dissolve sugar. Without stirring, cook until mixture registers 275 degrees (soft-crack stage) on a candy thermometer, about 8 minutes. Remove pan from heat; carefully stir in butter and extracts.
• Pour hot mixture onto prepared baking sheet. Allow edges to cool and set slightly; using a metal spatula coated with cooking spray, fold edges toward the middle (this will help cool taffy). When taffy is cool enough to handle but still quite warm, stretch and pull with lightly buttered fingers, folding the taffy over onto itself before pulling again until just starting to firm up, about 20 minutes.
• Before taffy cools and hardens too much, pull off ropelike pieces, and using kitchen scissors, make snips along sides. Gently stretch and pull snipped taffy on either end, forming thorny twigs. Snip into 7-inch lengths. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet; let cool.

Steps:

• In a large saucepan, place all the ingredients except extracts, and gently stir them to combine. Place a candy thermometer on the side of the pan and bring to a boil, stirring only to prevent burning. Cook to hardball stage (265 to 270 degrees), remove from the heat, stir in the extracts, and pour onto a silpat-lined sheet pan or buttered sheet pan. Let it cool enough to handle then start rolling it into a log and stretching or pulling the taffy to work air in and make it white and opaque. Keep pulling and twisting until it hardens. Form long ropes of taffy, then cut them into pieces.
• Some tips when making taffy: Oil the top 1-inch of the saucepan's wall to keep the sugar from boiling over. Always use a pan bigger than you think you need to prevent boiling over. Always use a burner as big or bigger than your pan's bottom. Never scrape the bottom of the pan at the end, just pour out the syrup. Wash down the sides of the pan with a clean wet pastry brush to avoid crystallization.