Traditional Irish Cooking: Yellowman Sponge Toffee

Sponge toffee, honeycomb toffee, bonfire candy, seas moss, or puff candy. Regardless of what you call it, there is a candy treat that is enjoyed from the United Kingdom, to Australia and New Zealand, to South Africa and North America. In Ireland the confection is called Yellowman. It is a crunchy toffee full of bubbles, but if you hold it in your mouth it will melt like butter.

I had my first taste of sponge candy as a little girl in Southwestern Ontario. I remember my father had to drive to a convenience store about twenty minutes away to get it, and it came wrapped in a very plain clear cellophane. It was a massive, thick rectangle of candy - and to be honest it wasn't terribly exciting to look at. I think the only reason I picked it up was that the store didn't carry much in the way of candy, and I only had a small amount of pocket money to spend. But after my first taste I was hooked, much to Dad's chagrin! I can't tell you how many times I pestered him to make that drive so I could have more of this heavenly delight!

Irish Yellowman is associated with the Celtic festival of Lammas, and especially with the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle, County Antrim. It is traditionally smashed into small bits with a hammer and served from paper cones. Some folks like to coat chunks of Yellowman with melted chocolate, especially at Halloween. This treat is echoed in commercially available chocolate bars like Nestle's Violet Crumble, or Cadbury's Crunchie bar.

Irish Yellowman Toffee Recipe
1 tbsp (15 mL) butter
1 cup (250 mL) brown sugar
1 cup (250 mL) golden or corn syrup
2 tbsp (30 mL) white vinegar
1 tbsp (15 mL) baking soda

Line a rectangular baking pan with baking parchment, then grease all the surfaces well. Set the pan aside. Prepare your Yellowman in a Dutch oven or the bottom of a double boiler, about 5 quarts (4.7 litres.) The mixture will bubble a lot during the cooking, and the hot sugar will cause nasty burns if it splatters.

Melt the butter in the Dutch oven. Add the sugar and then the syrup, stirring until dissolved. Heat the Yellowman ingredients to a rolling boil. You may be tempted to stir, but this is a candy that doesn't want to be stirred while cooking.

Keep an eye on the cooking toffee. When it is bubbling well, you can watch for it to reach the hard crack stage. If using a candy thermometer, the temperature will be between 300°-310° F (about 150°-155° C.) You can also test the candy by dropping a small amount into a glass of cold water. The Yellowman is finished cooking if the syrup mixture hardens into brittle threads that break if you try to bend them. If you aren't experienced at candy making, use a thermometer. If you don't boil long enough, the Yellowman will fall like a cake when you slam the oven door. Be careful when handling the molten candy, as it will be very hot!

Remove the Yellowman from the heat. Very carefully add the vinegar. Watch out, the candy may spit! Quickly add in the baking soda, and get to stirring. Stir hard! There will be a reaction between the vinegar and the soda, which is what produces the bubbles in the toffee. Keep stirring until the candy turns bright yellow.

Pour the Yellowman into the pan to cool. Resist the urge to smooth it out! The candy will sink in the middle a bit as it cools, about an inch (2.5 cm) or so. This is normal. After about 20 minutes, use a blunt knife to turn the edges of the cooling Yellowman down away from the sides of the pan. This will help you to get it out of the pan later.

When well cooled remove the Yellowman from the pan and peel away the parchment. The toffee can be cut into slabs or smash it into the traditional "rubble." If you have any Yellowman leftover, store the toffee up to five days in an airtight container. It will lose some of its crunch, but will still taste good.

Sources:
"Yellowman recipe." HistoricalFoods

"Ireland: Yellowman (Crunchy Brown Sugar and Golden Syrup Toffee)." European Cuisines

"Yellowman, Irish sponge toffee." Kit's Chow