Daring Bakers August 2011 – Hazelnut Truffles and Sponge Candy

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was to make candy! And although I don’t care for sweets I did enjoy the hazelnut truffles (they slightly remind me of the Ferrero Rocher balls). The sponge candy was quite an adventure. The first batch I burned completely — although it’s not my fault at all – you see, the candy thermometer betrayed me. The second batch turned out better. Although after dirtying 2 pots with sponge candy it took me 5 kettles of boiling water to get the sticky honeycomb mess out of the them. It is pretty fascinating to watch the liquid expand and bubble up when you add the baking soda to the sugar, water, corn syrup mixture. So I suppose just seeing that was worth the annoying clean-up. Here’s a picture of the finished product (dipped in chocolate in the background.

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