How does treacle toffee differ from ordinary toffee?
The key ingredient is black treacle or molasses, the thick syrup that is a by-product of turning sugar cane or beet into sugar. Beyond that, each sweet maker has a different recipe, which will produce toffee that ranges from chewy and caramel-like to brittle. At the Toffee Shop in Penrith, Neil Boustead makes his treacle toffee with butter, sugar, treacle and, in traditional fashion, vinegar. “The vinegar gives a slight, characteristic sharpness,” he says, and the result is a toffee that is neither soft, nor brittle. “The secret is in the quality and ratio of the ingredients and the temperature at which the toffee is cooked.” When the toffee has cooled, the slabs are broken by hand and individually wrapped. What other kinds are there? Stockley’s Sweets in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, hand-makes two kinds of treacle toffee, as well as bubbly “cinder toffee”. “Down south they call it honeycomb,” says Kath Lawson of Stockley’s. “But perhaps because we call it cinder toffee and the look of i
