An Old Fashioned Taffy Pull - Keepers

Thursday we had an Old Fashioned Taffy Pull with Keepers at our house.  Our wonderful Amish neighbor's invited our family over years ago to make taffy and Mom decided it would be a fun thing to do with our Keeper's club.  So Becca and Lillian, (the ladies who also taught our club how to make doughnuts) came over and helped us make five flavors of taffy!

 

Lillian and I started the first two batches...

 

 ...while Becca showed some of the others how to cut the wrappers out of wax paper.

 

 Joanna and I started the next two batches while Hope and Elisabeth learned how to pull the taffy!

 



 After a while the taffy becomes harder and harder to pull!

 

Once you've pulled for a while you add the flavor and coloring. 

We made orange crème, chocolate, pina colada, vanilla, and peppermint flavored taffy.

 



 Once the taffy has been pulled until it becomes stiff enough, it is stretched into a long cord and twisted.  It's then cut into pieces and wrapped in the wax paper and placed in the tub containing that flavor.

 

Twisting the taffy prevents it from sticking to the wrapper.

 



 We did five batches of taffy during the afternoon.  It was quite fun to pull the taffy with our friends!

 Everyone got to take home a bag full of their favorite taffy's!

 

 

 

:: Recipe for Old Fashioned Taffy ::

 

4 cups sugar

1 pint milk

1 pint Karo syrup

1 T. knox gelatin

a walnut size of parawax (slice into small pieces before adding)

 

Boil the sugar, milk, karo, and parawax for 15 minutes before adding gelatin. 

Soak gelatin in 1/2 c. cold water for 15 minutes before adding to boiling mixture.

Once your mixture reaches 260*F pour into 3 buttered 9x13 pans and let cool until you can touch it without burning your hands... now the fun begins!!  Butter your hands so the taffy pulls easier and doesn't stick to your hands.  Pull the taffy until it turns white-ish then you can add your flavor and coloring.  Keep pulling to mix in the flavor and color.  Once the taffy is stiff--but still soft enough to chew--twist it into a long cord and then cut into bit sized piece before wrapping.

 

 

It was a very fun meeting and we all got to take home some of the yummy candies :)  thanks to Becca and Lillian for teaching us!  Have you ever made taffy?

 

~Kaitlyn