Personal: Peppermint Salt Water Taffy Recipe and Tips

The Salt Water Taffy Cowl test knit is finished and almost ready for release! The Salt Water Taffy Cowl evokes the shape and twist of old-fashioned pulled salt water taffy candies all wrapped up and twisted at the ends. Pattern uses simple cables, increases and decreases. Cables are charted and written.

Peppermint flavored taffy is a new holiday tradition for our family. So I’m sharing here about how we make it.

Here’s a quick look at our finished taffy from the first batch we tried. We learned quite a bit on the first batch and the next batches improved. One of the biggest things we learned is that I shouldn’t stop helping to climb onto a chair to take pictures of the process! So these pictures are from our first batch (and not great pictures because I was trying to be quick…and not get butter on the camera).

We use my 1990s version of the Betty Crocker Cook Book for just about everything in our house. For our Salt Water Taffy we use the recipe on page 96. (This same book lived through college and grad school and the Peace Corps and getting married and being a mom. I gave a newer version to each of my brothers when they moved out of the house. And I figured I’ll do the same for my teens when the time comes.)

It is amazing that you can start with these few ingredients and end up with a fancy treat.

The recipe we use is included next. After that I’ve added our Tips. And finally a look at the pictures of our first batch.

Salt Water Taffy Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons margarine or butter, plus butter for preparing pans and hands
• 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (I double this and sometimes triple it)
• Few drops red food coloring (again I double or triple this)

Instructions:

Butter a cookie sheet and set aside. Butter the sides of a large saucepan. In saucepan combine sugar, corn syrup, water and salt.

Cook and stir over medium-high heat to boiling. Clip candy thermometer to side of pan. Cook over medium heat, without stirring, to 265 degrees F (hard-ball stage, the cookbook says this can take up to 40 minutes but it never takes that long). Remove from heat. Stir in margarine, peppermint and red food coloring. Pour into prepared pan. Cool until easy to handle (book says 15 to 20 minutes but if you wait too long, the taffy will be cool and won’t pull properly).

Butter hands. Divide candy into four pices. Twist and pull each piece until it turns a creamy color (about 10 minutes). With buttered scissors snip taffy into bite-sized pieces. Wrap each piece in clear plastic or wax paper. Makes about 48 servings.

Tips:

• Make sure you thoroughly butter the cookie sheet, sauce pan, scissors and your hands!!! If needed, rebutter your hands as you pull the taffy.
• If your candy thermometer has trouble, replace it or find a different way to gauge your progress. Going past the hard-ball stage to the soft-crack stage can happen in a flash. Once you’ve gone past the hard-ball stage, you can likely still pull the taffy but you won’t be able to chew it without risking your teeth!! Instead you’ll end up with some very tasty candies that you MUST treat like a jaw breaker and not try to bite or chew.
• Pulling the taffy is actually a lot of fun. It is also a bit of a workout. A google search will find you some pretty great videos on how to pull taffy at home. We liked this one (the whole video is fun but mostly about making it on a pulling machine, about 3 minutes and 18 seconds is when they show how to pull by hand) and this one (about 4 minutes and 58 seconds for the pulling) and this one (about 3 minutes and 20 seconds for the pulling) best.
• If you don’t individually wrap your taffy, they will slowly start to meld back together into one big piece of taffy. This is interesting as a science experiment but makes them hard to eat.

And finally here’s a quick look at our progress through our first batch of the season of Peppermint Salt Water Taffy:

I hope seeing our process shows you that even though it sounds super fancy, making your own salt water taffy is really not that hard to manage with a few ingredients and some help. I also hope 2020 is treating you as well as possible. And that you are able to find some new holiday traditions or enjoy some old holiday traditions this year. Please be kind to yourself and others.