Hokey Pokey

December 22, 2007

Makes 2 cups

I was going to say that this isn't as fun as it sounds, but then I reconsidered. Hokey Pokey is the Cornish term for honeycomb, and is wonderful eaten in golden shards or crumbled into the best vanilla ice cream. I include it here as it is the perfect present to take to a dinner party. Better than flowers, as they need to be put into a vase, better than chocolate, which people tend to smile politely at, but put away in a drawer. No one can resist a bit of Hokey Pokey, I've found.

The quantities I've specified don't make an awful lot—enough to fill a little tin about 4-1/2 inches in diameter and 2-1/2 inches deep—but any more and you'd be sued by your dentist.

1/2 cup sugar
4 tablespoons dark corn syrup
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1. Put the sugar and syrup into a saucepan and stir together to mix. You can't stir once the pan's on the heat, though.

2. Place the pan on the heat and let the mixture first melt and then turn to goo and then a bubbling mass the color of maple syrup—this will take 3 minutes or so.

3. Off the heat, whisk in the baking soda and watch the syrup turn into a shooshing cloud of aerated pale gold. Turn this immediately onto a piece of reusable baking parchment (Silpat) or greased aluminum foil.

4. Leave until set and then bash at it so that it splinters into many glinting pieces.

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