Peach Raspberry Salt Water Taffy

Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp (45 mL) water
• 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
• ¾ cup (175 mL) white corn syrup
• ¼ cup (60 g) unsalted butter
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• ½ tsp peach candy flavouring
• ½ tsp raspberry candy flavouring
• Peach and pink food colouring powder, paste or gel

Directions

1. Have ready a baking tray lined with a silicone baking mat on a cooling rack.

Cook the sugar

1. Pour the water into a pot, followed by the sugar and corn syrup. Cover the pot and bring to a full boil over high heat. Uncover the pot and stir in the butter. Continue to cook, constantly stirring, until the candy reaches 245°F (118°C) on a candy thermometer, about 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the salt and pour the candy onto the baking mat. Let cool to about 84°F (29°C) or until you can lift it with your hands and it pulls away from the mat, 10 to 30 minutes.
2. In candy making, the cooling temperature is just as important as the cooking temperature. Developing the right structure plus the ease in handling are key to getting the right texture.
3. Always add salt at the end of the recipe or directly after cooking; otherwise, it can interfere with how the sugar cooks. Add flavourings after the sugar has cooled to prevent heat from evaporating or breaking them down.

Flavour and colour the taffy

1. Divide the taffy into two pieces on the silicone mat. Drizzle peach flavouring and peach colouring onto one half, and raspberry flavouring and pink colouring onto the second half. With clean hands, start pulling and stretching the peach taffy. Some of the extracts or colour may drip out as you start pulling, but you can dab it up as you stretch and reshape the taffy. Continue to stretch and reshape the taffy for about 15 minutes, until it becomes a pale colour and holds its shape when set down on the mat.
2. Buy concentrated candy flavourings at stores that sell baking and candy-making supplies. They are very concentrated, so you need only a little. Give these taffies a sweet and sour kick by adding ½ tsp ascorbic acid powder (or a product like Fruit-Fresh) to each of the flavoured taffies.
3. Taffy becomes lighter in colour as you stretch and aerate it. Keep that in mind when choosing your colours. If you’re stretching the taffy on your own for this recipe, alternate between the two flavours. Stretch the peach for 5 minutes, then the raspberry. Go back and forth until both have been pulled for about 15 minutes each.

Stretch the two flavours together.

1. For the final stretch, stack the peach taffy on top of the raspberry taffy. Give them three or four pulls and twists to intertwine them without fully combining them.
2. If you prefer, make all peach or all raspberry taffy candies and skip the final twisting.

Portion the taffy