Difference Between Toffee and Honeycomb Candy
The difference is texture and aeration: classic toffee is a dense, solid, hard candy made from butter and sugar cooked to the hard-crack stage, while honeycomb (cinder toffee) takes a similar hot sugar syrup and adds baking soda to inflate it into a light, airy, bubbly candy that shatters and crumbles.
By Kelsy Maruyama, Founder & Toffee Maker, Kelsy's Kandy
Reviewed by Jason Burns, Editorial Steward
Last updated Jul 20, 2026
Published by Kelsy's Kandy · Licensed under Citation License 1.0
What it means
- Both are cooked to the hard-crack stage of about 149-154 C (300-310 F), so both are hard candies rather than chewy ones.
- Classic toffee usually contains butter for a rich, buttery flavor; honeycomb often has no dairy and relies on golden syrup or corn syrup plus sugar.
- The defining step for honeycomb is stirring in baking soda, which releases carbon dioxide and creates the open, bubbly cells; toffee is not aerated.
- Toffee is dense and glassy; honeycomb is light and crunchy with a faint caramelized, slightly bitter edge from the baking soda.
Source:
- Wikipedia: Toffee (hard-crack stage and ingredients)
- Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking (candy aeration with baking soda)
Last verified: 2026-07-20