Should I Use The Cinder Toffee Or Hokey Pokey Recipe?

Asked by meganfriday. Answered on 27th July 2023

Full question

I have the Nigella recipes for both Cinder Toffee (in How To Be A Domestic Goddess) and Hokey Pokey (Nigella Express). They are both honeycomb recipes but very slightly different. Is one recipe an improvement on the other?

Hokey Pokey

By Nigella

Our answer

Nigella's Hokey Pokey (from NIGELLA EXPRESS) and Cinder Toffee (from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) are both types of honeycomb candy (or sponge candy). This is a crisp and airy confection which can be eaten on its own or crushed and used in desserts.

The ratios of sugar to golden syrup (or corn syrup) are slightly different but this doesn't really affect the candy that much. The golden syrup is used as it is an inverted sugar and it helps to prevent the candy from crystallizing when you stir in the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). If there was no golden syrup (or other inverted sugar) then the candy would just crumble when it started to foam up. The Hokey Pokey could be slightly stickier than the Cinder Toffee as it has a slightly higher proportion of golden syrup, and it also makes a smaller quantity as there is less sugar in the recipe. But the textural differences are minimal and we don't particularly recommend one recipe over another.