Make your own homemade taffy recipe

It’s a long, hot summer. Are you running out of things to do? How about homemade taffy? This is a super fun (safe-at-home) party activity, or just a nice change from baking bread.

Making taffy is featured as a fun birthday theme in The Secret Dare to Dream. Instead of a fancy party with food trucks, Missy instead chooses something simple for her Sweet Sixteen.

Taffy brings to mind summers at the beach, vacations, carnivals and theme parks — all the stuff we will be back to doing in 2021! Make it as a movie snack or just an entertaining and new activity for a lazy summer afternoon.

Homemade taffy ingredients

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon corn starch

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2/3 cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon flavored extract of your choice

2 drops food coloring of your choice

How to prepare the taffy

1. Add the sugar to a large pot fitted with a candy thermometer. Sift in the cornstarch and whisk into the sugar until well combined. Add the butter, corn syrup, salt, water, vanilla, and the flavor extract of choice to the pot. Whisk to combine, then turn the heat to medium and cook the mixture until it reaches 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Add the food coloring and stir to combine.
3. Pour the candy into a greased heatproof dish and cool until you are able to hand it (5-10 minutes).
4. Stretch the mixture out 12 inches and fold it over itself again and again for 10-15 minutes. The taffy will turn from translucent to opaque.
5. When the taffy becomes harder to pull, roll it to about a 30-inch long and 1-inch thick log on a greased surface. Cut the log in half. Then slice the taffy into bite-size chunks.
6. Wrap each piece of taffy in a square of parchment paper and twist the ends to seal.
7. ENJOY!