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So one thing I love about this time of year is all the yummy treats! It starts to get cold, and all I want to do is stay inside and make delicious foods! When I worked at Cox Honeyland, one of my favorite candies was their Old-Fashioned Honey Candy – the kind you can pull! It is delicious, and it’s fun to make! 🙂
Related recipe: Love homemade candy? Then you’ll love our Homemade Microwave Caramels!
Homemade Honey Candy Recipe
hen I worked at Cox Honeyland one of my favorite candies was their Old-Fashioned Honey Candy – the kind you can pull! It is delicious, and it’s fun to make!
Serving
Ingredients
- 2 cups melted honey
- 1 cup cream
- 1 cup sugar
- butter, (or butter-flavored cooking spray)
Instructions
- Combine the first 3 ingredients and cook slowly on medium heat until it forms a hard ball when you drop it into ice water. It took me about an hour.
- As the mixture gets close to being done, the bubbles from the boil will get a lot smaller and closer together. Pour the mixture onto a buttered cooking sheet. When cooled, pull with buttered hands. Stretch, twist and pull until firm (this is the fun part! ;)) and then form into long ropes and place on waxed paper.
- Cut into bite size pieces. If you want, you can roll them in powdered sugar and wrap them in wax paper.
Nutrition
Calories: 76 kcal · Carbohydrates: 16 g · Protein: 1 g · Fat: 2 g · Saturated Fat: 1 g · Cholesterol: 7 mg · Sodium: 2 mg · Potassium: 11 mg · Fiber: 1 g · Sugar: 16 g · Vitamin A: 73 IU · Vitamin C: 1 mg · Calcium: 4 mg · Iron: 1 mg
Did You Make This Recipe?We’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a review or a question in the comment section below the post.This recipe is courtesy of Cox Honey
This candy has been a family tradition for many years. We love it so much and have enjoyed sharing it with other family and friends!
They look yummy 🙂 do they taste like bit-o-honey at all?
Just a yummy honey candy, similar but much better and that great homemade taste.
Do we actually drop it in ice water to create a ball? I’m a bit confused on the process… :-/
I’m pretty good at just figuring things out as I go but I’m also a little confused by these directions. I cooked for an hour and did the water test and never really saw this hard ball formation. I poured it out on the buttered sheet but I’m not quite clear on the pull and twist part. Maybe if you included step by step pictures with the directions I bet that would help a lot. 🙂
Oh what a fun candy to make!!!
I used to ask my grandma to make this for my birthday. I think I’ll make this for all of my sisters for Christmas. It will bring back some nice memories. Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Just put a few drops of the candy into ice water to test.
What kind of cream do you recommend using?
Heavy Whipping cream
I am excited to try this recipe… We used to make honey candy all the time, but did not use the cream… I’m sure this would be a great recipe as I love honey and I love cream even more. We used to just put honey, water, sugar and sometimes lemon to make a great cough drop with the honey, boil it to a hard ball and stretch it like making taffy.. If you don’t want to do the water test method you can purchase a candy thermometer and just cook it to 255 degrees….
what about cream cheese?
😀
I would love to try this recipe, but I am really confused about the ice water part. Do I boil it for an hour and then pour it in ice water? Help???
The ice water part is just a little test that you can do. Drop a very small piece into the ice water and see if it goes hard. Don’t put all of the caramel in. 🙂
Ah, thank you. That makes much more sense 🙂 Also, (last question, I promise) during the cooking/boiling step, does it have to be stirred at all?
Hi Marren, I just talked to Steph and she said stir constantly. 🙂
Can this be made with extra honey & no sugar?
We have only made this delicious honey candy as the directed on the recipe.
Followed every step. The end result was a nasty smelling glass like structure. Don’t know where I went wrong.
Readers.. Not all grandmothers, great grandmothers had cooking thermometers.
“Hard ball stage” referring to candy, means that you get a bowl of ice, add some water. When a drop of the honey candy mixture hits the iced water, it will crystallize if it is ready. At that point it’s spread on waxed paper. When it cools enough to handle, children pull it, twist it into a braid, cool & cut.
Oh, and don’t substitute anything. This is a very old recipe. It’s sticky but wonderful.
I have made this candy successfully in the past. However last year every batch I made of this and other pull candies were sticky and sweated. What causes that?
Have you ever tried using a sugar substitute like Splenda or a Splenda blend?
We have not tried any sugar substitutes with this recipe. It’s so delicious the way it is we didn’t want to cut any corners.
Sounds like too high heat and cooked beyond hard ball stage. Do you have candy thermometer? They help greatly. Can pick up a Walmart.
At the hard ball stage, it’s past the pull, twist, cool and cut part. You need the soft ball stage for this. Hard ball stage is for nut brittle where you just break it into bits when it’s cool.
What is the shelf life?
Hello! Thank you for the recipe. My daughter is expecting in February and she’s planning a grey/white/yellow “bumblebee” nursery (not in your face bumblebees, just hints here an there. We are also planning her shower for the same theme.
If you don’t pull the candy (like taffy I assume) does it stay soft and pliable like caramels or harden up like a Jolly Rancher?
Hi Mandy. Our Homemade Honey Candy is in between soft caramel and a hard jolly rancher. It’s similar to taffy.
Agree – more questions than answers. It appears that this mixture needs to boil for an hour? Need a step by step rewrite. I’ll wait.
I dont understand the instructions either. do we boil to a ball then put in water but then pour on a sheet?
You add a drop of the boiled candy into a bowl of cold water to test it for doneness to the hard ball stage. (They are just explaining how to test that)
Do they need to be refridgerated afterwards?
No, just store in an airtight container.
What type of cream to use? What temperature should it be to form hard ball?
You can use heavy cream. Combine the first 3 ingredients and cook slowly on medium heat until it forms a hard ball when you drop it into ice water. It took me about an hour.
What is the “pulling” for? Can I just pour into pan?
Pulling the candy adds air and helps the sugar crystals to align – it makes the candy pretty and shiny and enhances the flavor to! We recommend not skipping the pulling