nursebobbie
Assistant Cook
Ok all. Here I am, with many questions about taffy! I have made it 4 times now, and only the 1st time was successful. What did I do differently, you may ask? I have no idea. Here is the recipe I used THIS time.
2 cups cane sugar
1 cup water
1 tb cornstarch
1 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tb unsalted butter
This time, I put all wet ingredients in saucepan first, then added sugar, salt, and cornstarch. I stirred constantly, due to the butter added at beginning. I used a rubber spatula to remove sugar coating from side of pan, as to avoid crystalization. I do not have a pastry brush. Syrup up to 250 degrees, then I remove from heat, understanding that the temp will rise a degree or 2 more before it begins to cool. I let this batch boil slowly for maybe 20 minutes before I raised the burner temp high enough to reach 250.
Questions:
1. should I leave out the butter, since, with my taffy experience, I end up using close to 1/2 unsalted butter to grease my hands?
2. Should I really need this much grease?
3. Does the room temperature/humidity make any difference?
4. What about glycerin?
5. Should I just buy a darn taffy hook?
6. Most recipes say the end result is shiny. My taffy is high gloss from the beginning.
There is much information I have found...all with highly various points of view on how fast to bring to a boil, when to add the salt and butter, if I should stir constantly while boiling or not, what temperature is the goal ( I understand that a lower temp means softer taffy, though I wonder if this has anything to do with my set-time). I literally pulled this taffy batch for about 2 hours, determined. I thought it was going well...but there comes a point that it seems the taffy is getting no closer to finished. Any ideas? The pics accompanying this post were taken right before I quit. No color added this time, because I really just wanted to keep an eye on the taffy, not an artificial color. It was a pretty pearl color, though.
2 cups cane sugar
1 cup water
1 tb cornstarch
1 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tb unsalted butter
This time, I put all wet ingredients in saucepan first, then added sugar, salt, and cornstarch. I stirred constantly, due to the butter added at beginning. I used a rubber spatula to remove sugar coating from side of pan, as to avoid crystalization. I do not have a pastry brush. Syrup up to 250 degrees, then I remove from heat, understanding that the temp will rise a degree or 2 more before it begins to cool. I let this batch boil slowly for maybe 20 minutes before I raised the burner temp high enough to reach 250.
Questions:
1. should I leave out the butter, since, with my taffy experience, I end up using close to 1/2 unsalted butter to grease my hands?
2. Should I really need this much grease?
3. Does the room temperature/humidity make any difference?
4. What about glycerin?
5. Should I just buy a darn taffy hook?
6. Most recipes say the end result is shiny. My taffy is high gloss from the beginning.
There is much information I have found...all with highly various points of view on how fast to bring to a boil, when to add the salt and butter, if I should stir constantly while boiling or not, what temperature is the goal ( I understand that a lower temp means softer taffy, though I wonder if this has anything to do with my set-time). I literally pulled this taffy batch for about 2 hours, determined. I thought it was going well...but there comes a point that it seems the taffy is getting no closer to finished. Any ideas? The pics accompanying this post were taken right before I quit. No color added this time, because I really just wanted to keep an eye on the taffy, not an artificial color. It was a pretty pearl color, though.
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