Honeycomb toffee

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Honeycomb Toffee
Cinder Toffee.jpg
Alternative names Sponge toffee, cinder toffee, seafoam, golden crunchers, hokey pokey
Type Toffee
Main ingredients Brown sugar, corn syrup (or molasses or golden syrup), baking soda
Cookbook: Honeycomb Toffee  Media: Honeycomb Toffee
A street seller in Asakusa Tokyo offering hand-made karumeyaki

Honeycomb toffee, sponge toffee or cinder toffee is a sugary toffee with a light, rigid, sponge-like texture. Its main ingredients are typically brown sugar, corn syrup (or molasses or golden syrup in the Commonwealth of Nations) and baking soda, sometimes with an acid such as vinegar. The baking soda and acid react to form carbon dioxide which is trapped in the highly viscous mixture. When acid is not used, thermal decomposition of the baking soda releases carbon dioxide. The lattice structure is formed while the sugar is liquid, then the toffee sets hard.


Regional names[edit]

Honeycomb toffee is known by a wide variety of names including:

In various cultures[edit]


In China it is called 蜂窝糖. It is said to be a popular type of confectionery among the after-80s in their childhood.


In Hungary, it is known as törökméz (Turkish honey) and is commonly sold at town fairs.


The same confection is a traditional sweet in Japan known as karumeyaki (カルメ焼き), a portmanteau of the Portuguese word caramelo (caramel) and the Japanese word yaki (to bake). It is typically hand-made, and often sold by street vendors.[citation needed]


Korean name
Hangul 달고나
Hanja n/a
Revised Romanization dalgona
McCune–Reischauer talgona
IPA [tal.ɡo.na]
Hangul 뽑기
Hanja n/a
Revised Romanization ppopgi
McCune–Reischauer ppopki
IPA [p͈op̚.k͈i]

Dalgona (달고나) or ppopgi (뽑기) is a Korean candy made with melted sugar and baking soda.[12][13] It was a popular street snack in the 1970s and 1980s, and is still eaten as a retro food.[14] When a pinch of baking soda is mixed into melted sugar, thermal decomposition of the baking soda releases carbon dioxide, which makes the liquidized sugar puff up, and it becomes a light and crunchy candy once cooled and hardened.[15] Typically, the creamy beige liquid is poured on a flat surface, pressed flat, and stamped with a patterned mold. Eaters try to trim their way around the outline or picture on the snack without breaking the picture.[15] If the trimming is completed successfully without breaking the candy, the consumer receives another free dalgona.[15]

See also[edit]


  8. ^ "Hill Top Candy". hilltop candy.com. 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2014. 
  10. ^ "Sponge Candy: Chocolate, With a Center of Honeycomb". BuffaloChow.com. January 1, 2008. Archived from the original on December 31, 2008. Retrieved 13 January 2010. 
  11. ^ "Sponge Toffee Recipe". CanadianLiving.com. Fall 2009. Retrieved 6 March 2014. 
  12. ^ AsiaToday (31 January 2017). "Korean Cuisine Introduced at JNU International Food Festival". Huffington Post. Retrieved 5 July 2017. 
  13. ^ Cho, Chung-un (24 February 2017). "[Eye Plus] Forgotten past relived at Tongin Market". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 5 July 2017. 
  14. ^ Seoul Metropolitan Government (2010). Seoul Guide Book. Seoul: Gil-Job-E Media. p. 150. 
  15. ^ a b c Sohn, Ji-young (3 December 2015). "Creative, eye-catching goods available at Seoul Design Market". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 5 July 2017.