Homemade Honeycomb & Cadbury Crunchie Bars
Save RecipeHi Bold Bakers!
By popular demand from my No Machine Ice Cream video, I’m showing you how to make homemade Honeycomb. It’s a crunchy, toffee caramel that you can add to my homemade Ice Cream or coat in chocolate to make your own “Crunchie” candy bar. So let’s get baking!
- ½ cup (100g) sugar
- 4 tablespoons golden syrup or honey
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda (AKA bicarb of soda) NOT BAKING POWDER
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First, prepare your tray. Line a baking tray with parchment paper, or grease a marble surface with flavorless oil (like I did in the video)
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READ FULLY THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE COOKING YOUR CARAMEL:
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Place the pot on the heat with the sugar and golden syrup(or honey) and let the mixture first melt, then turn to goo. Turn up the heat to medium and let the it simmer until the color of maple syrup -THIS TAKES 3 MINUTES, SET A TIMER!!! take care not to over cook.
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Turn Off the heat, and get prepared with your whisk and spatula because the next step happens really fast. Whisk in the bicarbonate of soda , fast and stand back and watch the syrup turn into a whooshing cloud of aerated pale gold. Quickly stop whisking and use your spatula to pour this immediately onto a piece of baking parchment or greased surface or a silpat .
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Leave until set cold and then bash at it, so that it splinters into many glinting pieces. To wash your pot fill it with hot water and let it sit and it will melt away.
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To make a crunchie bar: Melt good qualitybchocolate (i used 72% but you can go lower). Dip your broken honeycomb in the chocolate using a fork. Take out and let excess chocolate drip off. Place on a wire wrack to set.
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TIP: IF YOU LIVE IN A HUMID CLIMATE THE HONEYCOMB MIGHT GET STICKY AND MELT SLIGHT. IT LIKES DRY AIR. IF THIS HAPPENS, STORE THEM IN THE FREEZER AND THEY WILL BE PERFECT. :-
Baking powder can not be substituted for Baking soda
Take care when using honey as it burns fast then golden syrup
Meet Gemma
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Hi Gemma, I made this honeycomb today, it looked good but when I tasted it, it was really bitter. I used honey, please tell me where I have gone wrong.
hi there,
You will taste the ingredients you use. The flavor of the honey will come through, and also the bicarbonate of soda adds its’ own flavor.
I think you did not do anything wrong, but thst you expected a different thing!
Gemma 🙂
The best recipey ever!! Tried it twice and it was perfect 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Can I make it with clear corn syrup instead? Thank you.💕
Hi lulu,
I think you can try this! I think it will be good, but I have not tried it.
A small experiment, that will tell all,
Gemma 🙂
I did it today and it came out great and very pretty.
I used a thermometer and let the temperature of the caramel rise to 154 C
Unfortunatelly I had to made it with honey (I don’t have gold syrup) and so I got an intense honey smell and flavour, which I dislike.
Now I will have to offer it to someone who likes honey.
Hi Ana,
Oh dear! This sweet treat was indeed made with honey traditionally. The flavor of honey will concentrate when treated in this way, I am sorry you do not like it, but you are right, you will make friends by sharing it with the right people,
Gemma 🙂
Tried it and loved it!!! How long will it have the crunchy texture? I have kept it in an airtight container. Will that be enough to keep the texture for a week or so?
Hi Neha,
How this holds depends on the atmosphere where you live, humidity etc. Keep it as cool as you can in an airtight container, but really I think 3 – 4 days will be stretching it, it tends to dissolve when exposed to the air. Covered in chocolate it may hold longer.
I hope this is of help,
Gemma 🙂
Just wondering does it make any different using either golden syrup or honey? (Like in flavour or consistency)
Hi Salma,
Great question. I know for best results and flavor it is best to use golden syrup. It reacts a little differently than honey does. If you have access to it then I suggest that.
Best,
Gemma.
i tried this and worked very well.
can you substitute the honey for glucose syrup? is it possible to get a different colour? Thanks
Hi Victoria,
You know, that is a great question. I honestly don’t know, but there is a part of me that thinks it might work. However you will need to cook it longer to get your caramel because it’s not already ‘caramel like’ .
If you try it let me know. The best best option is Lyles Golden syrup. You can get it on Amazon pretty cheaply.
Gemma.
Hey! Decided to try this out today. I must say I think I did well, though I’m probably going to be getting Golden Syrup or something similar that isn’t honey. You were right when you said that Honey burns faster. My batch had a slightly burned taste (or at least I think that’s what it was…I could just not like the taste of cooked honey).
I will say though, using a thermometer probably would work better than eyeing it out. I’m assuming you want to get the mixture to the hard crack stage. Would doubling the recipe work the same way? I found that these measurements don’t seem to make up much product, and it may also be why my batch tasted burnt. I used a wide pot since I didn’t have anything else I trusted and I guess that can make the mixture cook faster and burn it a lot easier. Perhaps making sure the mixture isn’t spread so thin while cooking it will help.
Hi Kyle,
you hit the nail on the head! If you use a wide pot you will get to temperature very fast with a small amount of ingredients. This works well if you are reducing something, like making condensed milk/dulce De Leche for instance, but not so much for this. It is important to be able to judge it, and I tended to do this by eye/smell until recently, it is a learning curve. Practice this with a little pan, and a little mix, get the sugar dissolved before you raise the temperature, then watch it! It changes, the bubbles change, and as it is about right the smell changes too, becomes like the color of whiskey. Get this right and you will be able to use the technique for all sorts of things. Creme caramel! yum!
Gemma 🙂