The Lone Baker - Journal

mini peanut cupcake, piped bitter chocolate ganache, white chocolate peanut honeycomb with vanilla salt

The Friday night Masterclass episode of the reality TV show MasterChef Australia saw George create a plated dessert that was a tribute to a popular chocolate coated toffee & biscuit coated Australian ice-cream the "Golden Gaytime".

George's pretty plated dessert MasterChef Friday night masterclass

Today's post I used two elements from George's recipe the piped ganache and the honeycomb as cupcake toppings. I omitted the parsley garnish and swapped the salted peanuts for unsalted because I also wanted to include a touch of vanilla salt. Honeycomb is lots of fun to make, here are the step by step instructions...

In Australia we call this 'honeycomb', but depending where you are from you might know it as 'hokey pokey', 'sponge candy', 'sea foam', 'cinder toffee', 'puff candy', 'yellow man', 'fairy food' or 'angel food candy'.

Honeycomb recipe

Ingredients

365g (13oz) caster sugar

140g (5oz) glucose syrup

110ml (3.72 fluid oz) water

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

Optional garnishes;

300g (10.5oz) white chocolate, chopped or couverture buds

2 cups unsalted roasted peanuts

coarse salt (I used vanilla salt) to garnish

Method

Place sugar in a saucepan with glucose (use damp spoon to scoop it into the pan) and the water, then place the pan over high heat until the sugar dissolves.

Brush down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent sugar crystals forming. Swirl pan to dissolve sugar.

Once sugar has dissolved, wait for the bubbles to slow down and for the mixture to take on a faint golden tinge.

slight golden tinge around the edges of the pan

Line a large bowl with baking paper and have a whisk ready. Add the bicarb and quickly whisk vigorously, then immediately pour into the lined bowl. Set aside to set for 45 minutes.

pour honeycomb in lined bowl

Bring a small saucepan with 3-4cm of water to the boil, then reduce heat to low and place a heatproof bowl over the saucepan (don’t let the bowl touch the water). Place chocolate in the bowl and allow to melt gently until smooth.

Remove the honeycomb from the bowl, peel off the baking paper, then break honeycomb into chunks to become cupcake toppers.

remove from bowl and peel off baking paper

With a pastry brush, liberally brush honeycomb chunks with melted chocolate, then sprinkle immediately with peanuts & vanilla salt. Leave to set for 10 minutes. Just before serving press chunks into the ganache piped cupcakes.

Want the piped ganache or perhaps the peanut butter ice-cream that made up George's dessert then pop right over to the MasterChef Australia website.

You might also be interested in;

liquid sweeteners & syrups

Back tomorrow with what to do with "leftovers"; leftover sugar cookie dough and that leftover 'honeycomb'!!

Happy Baking :)