This candy is sciencetastic!

January 5, 2007 2:39 PM

My coworker from Buffalo NY brought in a bunch of sponge candy from back home and I was just about the only one who liked it. You can also make the stuff at home. Well someone can. Apparently it can only be made in winter, on account of the temperature needing to be just right for the crunchy center to set. Don't let the hot wings steal your glory, sponge candy! Which are also available, rendered in chocolate from the same site.
posted by mzurer (36 comments total)

Up here in Canada this stuff is a dime a dozen. Only we call it sponge toffee. I pity the foo who can't get it at the local variety store...

I will try the recipe though- thanks!
posted by sunshinesky at 2:47 PM on January 5, 2007

mmmmmmmmm. candy. thanks.
posted by Stynxno at 2:51 PM on January 5, 2007

did i miss something in the recipe? looks like you just foam up the vinegar/sugar mixture with the baking soda and let it set.
posted by Dr. Twist at 2:52 PM on January 5, 2007

I love seafoam/honeycomb (never heard it called sponge, but I'm sure it's the same thing) candy.

If you haven't tried the Violet Crumble or Crunchie bar, you're in for a treat.
posted by pinky at 2:55 PM on January 5, 2007

I hated this stuff as a kid but it has strangely grown on me. I'd live to try making it, it looks very easy.
posted by arcticwoman at 3:22 PM on January 5, 2007

Do not confuse with spongiform candy.
posted by cortex at 3:30 PM on January 5, 2007

Crunchie bar

I had what might be termed an unnatural love for them during my teenage years.
posted by The God Complex at 3:31 PM on January 5, 2007

Oh. Hokey pokey. We make that in science class first year of high school (I've also made it at home a few times). It's easy and tastes pretty nice, as long as you don't put too much baking soda in there. Hokey pokey ice cream is also the second highest seller in NZ after vanilla.
posted by shelleycat at 3:51 PM on January 5, 2007

Yum yum. Crunchies are my favorite candy bar!
posted by frecklefaerie at 4:13 PM on January 5, 2007

You made me remember how much I love sponge candy! Thanks for the recipe, mzurer.

Oh, and WTF is up with Fowler's calling them Buffalo wings? Blasphemy! (In Buffalo, it's just "wings.")
posted by AV at 4:27 PM on January 5, 2007

Um, yeah...a Crunchie.
posted by fire&wings at 4:37 PM on January 5, 2007

Is this anything like Crunchy Frog?
posted by Pastabagel at 4:45 PM on January 5, 2007

Also known as Cinder Toffee here in the UK
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:45 PM on January 5, 2007

I made some for my SO to break up and ice her sister's birthday cakes with last year and this. Her sister loved it; it was the sister's favorite icing as a child, but their mom hated making it, and mostly refused to do it. I enjoyed it, and this year's batch was perfect, but brain cancer will almost certainly have put an end to any further need for that particular icing by this time in 2008.
posted by jamjam at 4:45 PM on January 5, 2007

Oh, you mean puff candy. We do that in Scotland all year. It's always an interesting gamble to see if you'll get that hidden pocket of bicarbonate nastiness.
posted by scruss at 4:50 PM on January 5, 2007

If this really is what's inside a Crunchie bar (and the wikipedia page describes Crunchies as containing 'sponge toffee', so I guess it must be), we call it honeycomb in Australia. I remember that Crunchie bars used to vary in quality: sometimes the honeycomb was firm and crisp, but sometimes it was soft, crumbly, darker in colour and overly sweet. A bit like a Golden Delicious apple compared to a Jonathon. I hated the second kind (also hate Jonathons. Stupid soft apples). Not sure if they've engineered a bit more consistency into their processes in recent years.

Violet Crumbles, on the other hand, were consistently excellent. They've gone downhill since Rowntree was taken over by Nestle, though.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 5:03 PM on January 5, 2007

jamjam - what do mean you ice cakes with this stuff?

(And my condolences on the brain cancer. You could make her the cake again anyways, even if it's not her birthday.)
posted by arcticwoman at 5:26 PM on January 5, 2007

Thank you for your condolences, arcticwoman, and that's a good idea-- as the day rolls closer I'll try to get my mate to think about making the cake; it would help me, I think.

To make it into icing, you first put a layer of sticky icing on the cake, then you break up the mass of sponge candy into pieces the size and shape of corn flakes and apply them over that. It is just overwhelmingly, ridiculously, crunchily sweet.
posted by jamjam at 6:27 PM on January 5, 2007

Buffalo may have sponge candy but Rome, NY, has Turkey Joints. (I'm really going to have to give in and order some of these.)
posted by Morrigan at 6:50 PM on January 5, 2007

I. love. sponge candy. (molasses sponge in New Hampshire.)
posted by simonemarie at 8:11 PM on January 5, 2007

Not the same thing as candied sponge, eh?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 8:17 PM on January 5, 2007

I initially read this as "spooge candy." I'm glad it's not.
posted by me & my monkey at 8:28 PM on January 5, 2007

Metafilter: unnatural love for Crunchie bars
posted by ericbop at 8:45 PM on January 5, 2007

really interesting to hear all the different names of this stuff... I wonder what other delicious foods have such a large number of varients around the world.
posted by sunshinesky at 9:20 PM on January 5, 2007

Wow, I can't believe I forgot about this stuff. Makes me want to drive back to Buffalo, hit La Nova's, and top it off with a heapin' helpin' of sponge candy!
posted by sonofslim at 10:16 PM on January 5, 2007

In Wisconsin I've heard it called both "fairy food" and "angel food." Mmmmm.
posted by limeswirltart at 10:25 PM on January 5, 2007

Morrigan-

Wow, you made me realize that despite the fact I'm a native of Rome, I've never had a turkey joint.

I've only seen the place mentioned once in an old yearbook advertisement from the 70s and I've seen a jar of turkey joints at a Utica supermarket in the gourmet section.

Man, I feel like it some turkey joints and some of these spongey candy too now.
posted by champthom at 10:43 PM on January 5, 2007

I went to school in Buffalo, and now live in the same city as my best friend, a Buffalo native. She always stops at Parkside Candy on Main St. & brings me a box when she goes home for the holidays.

Sweet Jesus, nothing else like it - mmmmmm.
posted by deliciae at 2:06 AM on January 6, 2007

I'm very sorry, but when I first read it I thought it said "spooge candy"...
posted by Tube at 3:40 AM on January 6, 2007

Aka Crunchie AKA Violet crumble AKA Honeycomb.

Now a violet crumble and a crunchie are profoundly different, with a violet crumble being only violet in the colour of it's wrapping, and having a finer foam. The trick when eating is to separate the chocolate from the honeycomb with your teeth, the larger the sheet removed, the more glory you acquire. This is much easier to do with a Crunchie.

Should a friend, while walking along with you, ask if you have been smashed over the head with a king sized crunchie, you should always answer in such a way that you won't then receive the aforementioned cranial blow.

I figured that a foamed chocolate coated confection could do my skull little damage. Wrong. It was like being smashed with a brick. I staggered, and recovered with a pounding headache. The crunchie was reduced to dust, I was reduced to clutching my bruised noggin and befouling the air with crude language.
posted by tomble at 5:24 AM on January 6, 2007

I've tried making turkey joints, but I can't get them to stay lit, so these days I stick to using my turkey bong (it's filled with giblet gravy).
posted by kcds at 5:34 AM on January 6, 2007

I used to buy the chocolate covered honeycomb in bulk from Sees candy. I don't know if it is still available, but that and almond bark were my favorites even though the honeycomb always stuck to the teeth.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:36 AM on January 6, 2007

Mark me down as another Wisconsinite who knows it as fairy food or angel food candy. Growing up, we only ever got it at Christmas, so it was one candy I never got sick of.
posted by kayjay at 8:12 AM on January 6, 2007

My girlfriend's family knows it as fairy food, and my family knows it as angel food candy. Also from Wisconsin. My girlfriend's grandma makes veritable bucketloads around Christmas, and this year I found out that fairy food made from fairy food crumbles is definitely better than big chunks of it. Our friendly local grocery store carries Violet Crumble, and I've always wondered what it is. I click through this link, and I'm enlightened.

O synchronicity. . .
posted by adamwolf at 9:53 AM on January 6, 2007

Another "Wisconsin Calls It Angel Food" shout out. I got it at Seroogy's Chocolates lots of times. They seem to put molasses in theirs, though.
posted by angeline at 2:02 PM on January 6, 2007

Never ever try to suck on a bite of these. Ever. Makes Cap'n Crunch Mouth look like No Big Deal. Toffee cinder indeed!
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:36 PM on January 10, 2007