let's start with sponge toffee it's so much fun to make and don't you just love eating it an important tip when you're making toffee is get all your ingredients organized and ready because once you start cooking that sugar you can't focus on anything else but that's sugar i'm gonna pour a tablespoon and a half of honey into a cup and then just put that by the stove because i need to add that halfway through the cooking process now to really get that spongy effect you need to add baking soda so i'm getting that ready to five teaspoons it really does take a lot but this makes a big recipe there we go and something i've discovered that really helps to froth up the baking soda is adding a little cream of tartar i mix in half a teaspoon i just stir it into the baking soda here and because cream of tartar is an acidity as soon as it hits the liquid sugar when i pull it off the stove boom it immediately starts foaming up it just guarantees you get a perfect even frothiness all the way through that sponge toffee as you're stirring it so i have that ready and now it's time to measure the ingredients into the pot i like to start with a cup of water with the water at the bottom of the pot i know the sugar will melt evenly okay toffee is toffee it's candy so it takes a lot of sugar three and a half cups here we go and to get the right set and consistency in the sponge toffee you also need corn syrup i use golden corn syrup that way you get a nice color in your sponge toffee and it's a full cup and a half it's the little simple tips that count when it comes to making a good sponge toffee now this is an easy tip don't do anything you don't want to stir your mixture here just take it over to the heat and put it on high the reason you don't stir it is that the sugar could crystallize i'll boil the sugar without stirring until it reaches about 284 fahrenheit and i use my candy thermometer to make sure i hit that temperature all right here it is i've hit 284 which is the point where i add the honey it's amazing how the small measurement really imparts a beautiful honey flavor and now to bring it to the perfect temperature i cook it up to 300. so i just let it go don't need to stir anymore and it doesn't take long i'm almost there now 300 all right now very carefully take it off the heat you can work over your stovetop if you wish but i'll just set this here on a trivet i have my pan already set it's a 9 by 13 pan greased and i've lined it with parchment with the parchment coming up the sides this grows that much it'll actually grow over the pan now this is where i have to work quickly i'm going to sift in the baking soda and cream of tartar over the top and then stirring very quickly with a wooden spoon because it doesn't conduct the heat get that baking soda in there so it's well blended you want to stop stirring after a point and now i get it right into my pan this is the best part about making sponge toffee look at that and you'll see that over the next 15 minutes it grows up and up and as it starts cooling you will find it sinks in the middle but don't worry it won't collapse now i'm gonna set this aside and because that sugar was so hot 300 degrees it takes at least two hours to cool down completely and once it's cooled ta-da there it is the great thing about sponge toffee is in an airtight container it can keep for weeks so you can make a big batch and have it on hand it looks like it's going to be heavy but really it's amazing how light it is and sturdy but you can hear it's kind of hollow and then just take something like the end of a rolling pin and you just crack away at it and break those pieces to reveal that sponge toffee center the little crumbs are the best bits to eat in my mind but the big bits i break into pieces i love seeing the airy bubbles in there