Saltwater Taffy
Saltwater taffy made its debut way back in the 1920’s by a gentleman named Joseph Fralinger. Not much later, another candy maker named Enoch James stepped in and refined the recipe by developing the pulling process. This involved allowing the cooled taffy mixture to drape over a hook, which turned in time to stop gravity from allowing it to drop on the floor. This process repeated over and over makes the taffy became aerated and opaque, and it’s what keeps the candy nice and soft.
When making saltwater taffy at home, the pulling is done by hand—and is it ever fun! The candy mixture is simple enough; it’s just sugar, corn syrup, water, glycerine, salt and flavoring. Color can be added to it, but it’s not necessary.
Click image to order Lorann Professional Bakery Emulsion!
When I make saltwater taffy, I never make a huge batch, which is why this recipe seems so minimal in ingredients. You can easily double, triple or even quadruple the recipe if you have many mouths to feed. While you’re at it, you can pour the cooked syrup into three or four separate pans and flavor each one differently. Then you can recruit a few helpers and pull the taffy together. An important thing to note is this taffy does not have the best shelf life. It will only be good for 2-3 weeks—then it loses its chewiness, so make sure it gets eaten!
The trickiest part about this recipe will be cooking the syrup to just the right consistency. If you use a candy thermometer for your confections, cook it to a “very” firm ball stage. This would fall in the 245-250 degree F range, but shoot closer to 250-252 degrees F. It is important that the candy firms up well. I favor the cold water test method over thermometers. When you drop some of the syrup into a glass of ice water, the ball that forms at the bottom determines the consistency of the candy when it cools. I like for the ball to be fairly hard, but still easy to pinch. When you pull on the ball, it should stand up well. I find that when making this amount of taffy, it takes almost exactly 13 minutes to cook to this stage. (But start checking it after 10 minutes!)
For flavoring, I used a bakery emulsion, which is a potent, concentrated syrup used in professional candy making. It’s also colored, so it automatically tints the taffy. You can just as well use any extract, but if you want a colored candy you will have to accompany this with a food coloring of your choice.
Last bit of advice: don’t over oil the baking sheet or pan you are pouring the taffy into after cooking—and oil your hands sparingly if at all when it comes time to pull it. If you do, the access oil seeps into the taffy and it stays too soft, making it very difficult to both wrap and eat. Aside from this bit of advice, have a blast making saltwater taffy!
Notes
You can double, triple or quadruple this recipe if you want to make different flavors. Just pour the candy into separate pans, flavor each one differently and proceed to pull.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup corn syrup
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon glycerine
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon butter
- 1/2 teaspoon extract or flavoring of your choice
- Food coloring (optional)
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, water, glycerine and salt.
- Stir constantly over medium high heat so sugar dissolves thoroughly and mixture comes to a boil.
- Stop stirring and reduce heat to medium low. Allow mixture to cook to 248-252 degrees F, or firm to hard ball stage. You can also drop a small amount of the mixture into a glass of ice water/. The ball that forms at the bottom should be fairly hard, but firm enough that it can be pinched. This should take 10-13 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in butter.
- Pour hot mixture into a very lightly oiled cookie sheet or 9"x13" pan underneath which a rack has been place to protect surface below.
- Allow candy to cool. Add flavoring, fold candy over and begin pulling into a long sausage shape, doubling then pulling again.
- Keep pulling taffy until soft and opaque, about 5-10 minutes.
- Roll taffy into a long rope and using oiled kitchen scissors, cut taffy into desired size pieces.
- Wrap each piece in a square of waxed paper.
In your saltwater taffy recipe, the #6 step says to allow the candy to cool. How long should you allow it to cool before adding flavoring & continuing the process?
Allow it to cool until it’s easy enough to pull without burning your hands. It’s usually still warm when I start pulling, then cooled by the time I’m finished. Just a warning…do be sure to cook the syrup closer to hard ball stage than firm ball. And finally, this taffy loses its chew after a week or two, so make small batches and consume quickly. I hope it turns out great for you! 😀
Amazing recipe I made this And I’m only 13 it tastes great i adduced real fruit juice to the recipe instead of flavouring
That’s amazing! This is actually quite a tricky recipe for some people, so hats off to you! I will soon post a recipe for homemade Starburst, so stay tuned and keep up the great work!! 😀🙌
can the glycerin be substituted?
Hi! You can just omit it if you want. The glycerin makes the taffy a little more silky but it will be fine without it.
should you use light or dark corn syrup? does it even matter?
I used golden syrup and it was fine. Dark should be okay too, though if I had first choice I would go for light. I hope this helps : )