Recipe Detail Page

1. Butter an 8x8-inch (20x20-cm) square pan.

2. Fill a small bowl with cold water and wet a pastry brush. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, water, cornstarch, butter, chocolate and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until a candy thermometer registers 256ºF (124ºC). While cooking the mixture, brush down the insides of the pan with the wet pastry brush every few seconds to prevent the sugar from crystallizing. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour mixture into buttered pan. Be careful, mixture is hot and can burn your skin easily. Butter a large cutting board.

3. When cool enough to handle, butter your hands and pull taffy until it is light in colour and has a satiny gloss. This is a messy process but have fun with it. You'll need to pull taffy for about 10 minutes. Roll the taffy into a long rope about ½-inch (1-cm) in diameter and put it on the buttered board. Butter a pair of scissors and cut the rope into 1-inch (2.5-cm) pieces. Don't worry if the pieces are uneven. Let the pieces sit for about 30 minutes. Individually wrap each candy in a buttered piece of wax paper larger than the candy and twist the ends.