Sponge Toffee by Greweling

[CanadianBakin']

I see Kerry has a sponge toffee recipe listed in recipegullet but in one of the threads she mentions using gelatin in Greweling's recipe. I don't have Greweling's recipe and the library is closed. I was wondering if someone could please post it?

Do you prefer sponge toffee with gelatin or without?

[Kerry Beal]

Sent to you via PM. It makes a much better sponge toffee than the one I did in the confectionery course.

[CanadianBakin']

Thanks so much Kerry!

[emmalish]

This is timely! I've been looking at both Kerry's recipe and Greweling's (from his At Home book) and trying to decide which to make. I was leaning towards Kerry's because I'd had such good luck with her caramel recipe. I googled to see if anyone else uses gelatin, and this thread popped up in the results. Thanks! Will probably give it a shot tomorrow. CanadianBakin', have you tried it yet? How'd it turn out for you?

[dhardy123]

After some discussions with Chef Greweling on his facebook page, he suggests using the sponge toffee recipe from his second book as it makes a lighter sponge toffee. He also says it is really important for the sponge toffee to cool very slowly. He suggested to put it on a stovetop with the oven turned on and the door open. This seemed to work best for me when I tried it after an unsuccessful first attempt.

[emmalish]

Thanks dhardy123. That's great advice. When you say "his second book", are you referring to the At Home book? Or is there another I don't know about?

[dhardy123]

Yes his "At Home" book. He said he will be editing the recipe from his first book when the second edition comes out "sometime in 2011"

Edited December 5, 2010 by dhardy123 (log)

[RichardJones]

Could someone be kind enough to post the second recipe being discussed, please? I only have his first book with the old recipe. Thanks a lot. Richard.

(And if anyone can explain the science behind the slow cooling, please, I would be interested to hear.)

[emmalish]

Here you go, Richard...

1/4 tsp gelatin

1 tsp cold water

3 c sugar

1 c light corn syrup

1 c water

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp baking soda, sifted

+ approx 2 cups tempered chocolate for dipping

Prepare a 9x13 baking pan. Greweling's instructions say to butter & flour it, but I'm planning to just use parchment.

Mix the gelatin and cold water together and set aside.

In a 4 quart saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup and water, cover and bring to a boil.

Continue boiling covered for 4 minutes. Uncover, and continue to cook until your thermometer reads 280°F.

Add the honey and cook to 310°F. Remove from heat and let sit undisturbed until it stops bubbling (approx 2 minutes).

Whisk the gelatin into the syrup, ensuring it's been mixed well.

Vigorously whisk the baking soda into the mixture, also ensuring it's been mixed well.

Return the pot to the heat and continue whisking for about 30 seconds. It will continue to bubble up and rise in the saucepan.

Remove from heat and immediately pour it into the prepared pan and leave undisturbed for at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight. Note dhardy's instruction above to let it cool slowly.

Remove from the pan and break into pieces. Dip in chocolate if desired.

[CanadianBakin']

This is timely! I've been looking at both Kerry's recipe and Greweling's (from his At Home book) and trying to decide which to make. I was leaning towards Kerry's because I'd had such good luck with her caramel recipe. I googled to see if anyone else uses gelatin, and this thread popped up in the results. Thanks! Will probably give it a shot tomorrow. CanadianBakin', have you tried it yet? How'd it turn out for you?

I didn't have much luck with the gelatin version and didn't have time to try again so I went with a standard sponge toffee recipe (can't remember if I used Kerry's) but used some of her tips. Butter and flour the pan and have it warm in the oven (maybe 200F). When you add the toffee put it back in the oven and turn the heat off. Leave it for a couple hours. This turned out a very nice sponge toffee.

[emmalish]

Hmm, not an entirely successful attempt. It all went well at first, but I think I should have followed some of Kerry's instructions for warming the pan and letting it cool in the oven. I had just finished baking some cookies so I let it cool on top of the stove with the oven door open. I did not, however, leave the oven on. My bad.

At first the foam was sooooo fluffy that it almost overflowed the pan. By the time I got the camera set up, it had already started to collapse a bit in the center, but the dent's really not as deep as it looks in the photo (trick of the light).

After a couple hours of cooling, you can see it's collapsed a fair bit.

When I cut it, oddly one side seemed okay, but the other side was like trying to hack through concrete. I ended up cutting the top and bottom of the sponge off and just saving the middle bits. These bits are from the side that seemed alright – you can see the top & bottom have lost the foaminess and compressed, but it's still edible...

It tastes great, but I feel like I'll have to warn people that they could lose a filling if they're not careful. ;-)

[RichardJones]

Emmalish, thank you ever so much for your timely posting of the recipe - and your photos look super. I'd eat it with pleasure!

Would it be ungrateful, though, to ask whether the recipe is also published in metric in that book? I don't know about cups (being English...) and I understand that approximations can be taken when converting so an original metric version would be better than my online conversion. Sorry to ask after you spent the time copying out the above so kindly for me.

I think I might be able to answer my own question about the science of the warmed oven if anyone else is interested. I think the reason for it is to stop the sugar collapsing before it cools to a solid structure. If you leave the sugar in cool air, the bubbles will contract and the toffee will collapse. If you leave the sugar somewhere warm the sugar will set before the bubbles have contracted too much.

Richard

[emmalish]

Richard, I'm sorry, but this particular book only has the imperial measurements. Being Canadian I'm used to working with both. I can do the conversion for you later if you like? The conversions for these amounts is pretty straightforward.

Edited December 7, 2010 by emmalish (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Not precisely the same - but the measurements I use from his other book

Gelatin solution

5 grams gelatin

20 grams water

Toffee

685 grams sugar

370 grams glucose

200 grams water

20 grams honey

5 grams gelatin solution

20 grams baking soda, sifted

Edited December 7, 2010 by Kerry Beal (log)

[FoodMan]

I've been meaning to try Chuck Hughes' recipe for this toffee. It's very simple and seemed to work great on the show. Any one tried it before? Here's the link:

Sponge Toffee

[RichardJones]

Thanks emailish, please don't worry, I have a little converter that should do the work.

Kerry, is that the unrevised recipe from the first book? If so I already have that as mentioned but thank you for taking the time to post it.

Just since we seem to be collecting recipes for sponge toffee on this thread, here is one from Gordon Ramsay (with olive oil ice cream). Untried:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/recipes/article2567969.ece

Richard

[mkayahara]

Last night I tried making the sponge toffee from Chocolates and Confections At Home, as listed upthread. What a mess! As soon as I added the baking soda, the whole thing bubbled up so high and vigorously that it overflowed the 6-quart pot I was cooking in and ended up all over the stove top. Can anyone speculate as to what I did wrong? I'm thinking it's likely one of two things: I overcooked the syrup, taking it to about 315 F rather than 310 as specified, and I'm not sure I waited long enough for the bubbling to settle down before adding the baking soda. Any help would be appreciated!

(Sadly, the final product that I did get - though remarkably airy - isn't usable, because I burned the sugar in overcooking it, and the vigorous bubbling meant that I wasn't able to thoroughly mix in the baking soda, so the flavour is... not good.)

Edit: To clarify, I realize that the answer is probably "do what the recipe says next time," but I'm curious which of the two errors is responsible for the overflowing, or if it's both, or something else entirely.

Edited February 23, 2011 by mkayahara (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Last night I tried making the sponge toffee from Chocolates and Confections At Home, as listed upthread. What a mess! As soon as I added the baking soda, the whole thing bubbled up so high and vigorously that it overflowed the 6-quart pot I was cooking in and ended up all over the stove top. Can anyone speculate as to what I did wrong? I'm thinking it's likely one of two things: I overcooked the syrup, taking it to about 315 F rather than 310 as specified, and I'm not sure I waited long enough for the bubbling to settle down before adding the baking soda. Any help would be appreciated!

(Sadly, the final product that I did get - though remarkably airy - isn't usable, because I burned the sugar in overcooking it, and the vigorous bubbling meant that I wasn't able to thoroughly mix in the baking soda, so the flavour is... not good.)

Edit: To clarify, I realize that the answer is probably "do what the recipe says next time," but I'm curious which of the two errors is responsible for the overflowing, or if it's both, or something else entirely.

I cook it in a bigger pot! I've overflowed a small pot before even when all the bubbling had stopped.

[mkayahara]

Good point. I figured I'd be OK moving up to 6 quarts from the 4 quarts recommended in the recipe. I'm not sure I have a bigger pot I'd feel comfortable caramelizing sugar in...

[mkayahara]

Of course, there's another possibility: he calls for 2 Tbsp or 1/2 oz. of baking soda. I just measured out 1 Tablespoon, and that was 0.6 ounces... is the volume measurement supposed to be after sifting?

Edit: Or perhaps the volume measurement is supposed to be 2 teaspoons?

Edited February 27, 2011 by mkayahara (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Of course, there's another possibility: he calls for 2 Tbsp or 1/2 oz. of baking soda. I just measured out 1 Tablespoon, and that was 0.6 ounces... is the volume measurement supposed to be after sifting?

Edit: Or perhaps the volume measurement is supposed to be 2 teaspoons?

The recipe I use (not from the At Home but the original) uses 20 grams of soda for 685 grams sugar and 370 grams glucose.

[mkayahara]

I ended up using 15 grams of baking soda, and had much better success this time than last. For one thing, I didn't burn the sugar. (Though I did burn myself, and a nasty burn it is!) For another, I let it settle down a little longer before adding the soda (as I held my burnt hand under the tap).

The final product is good, but it could stand to be a little lighter. It looks like the sugar and corn syrup amounts Kerry mentions are similar to what's in the At Home version (though obviously there's more water in the corn syrup than in straight-up glucose), so I might bump up the soda to 20 grams next time and see how it goes.

[Kerry Beal]

Matthew - are you pouring it into a warmed pan and keeping it in a warmer place (the oven) while it cools?

[mkayahara]

Matthew - are you pouring it into a warmed pan and keeping it in a warmer place (the oven) while it cools?

No, I forgot to warm the pan beforehand. I did let it cool in front of the oven vent, with the oven turned on, though. Next time, I'll try it in a warmed pan in the oven, though I admit I find the idea counter-intuitive: wouldn't you want the sugar to harden as quickly as possible in order to trap the bubbles? I'm willing to defer to greater experience on this one, but I'd love to know the explanation...

[annachan]

It's interesting reading about needing to use a warm pan and keeping it in a warm place to cool. I made sponge a few years ago during Christmas time. I can't remember which recipe it was but it was a simple one. I don't think I used gelatin. I just put it in a regular pan, not warmed, and let it cool in room temp. Considering that was in San Francisco, the room temp was on the cold side. The sponge came out just fine. I wonder if some recipes just don't require the warm treatment.