Taffy Pull--Ever Have One? Any tips, recipes, etc.?

[umsami]

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, we did a taffy pull.  I remember it being a lot of fun... and yummy too.  I'd love to host one for my kids and possibly some of their friends (probably do a dry run first :)).  Has anybody ever done this? Have any recipes or tips that worked well for you??

Thanks In Advance :)

[Jayray]

I did it with my grandma a long time ago.  This is what I recall (although realize I was probably 12 the last time we did it!).  We boiled King syrup in an iron skillet until it got to the soft ball stage (I think).  Sometimes grandma added a little bit of baking soda--she said it made it look prettier.  Then it was dumped into a buttered dish until it was cool enough to handle.  Then we pulled it (with buttered hands, of course!).  I don't know when we knew it was "ready," but at some point we laid the pulled bits out to cool and broke them into pieces when they were cool.

[tanyalynn]

I sorta made some near Halloween, making a dairy-free tootsie roll-like candy.  I learned that pulling "enough" is important--if you skimp on the pulling (say, you let it cool for a long time, instead of wearing gloves like my instructions said ) then the final candy is hard rather than chewy.  Whoops.  So I'd consider gloves (or maybe just a bit of re-heating in the microwave partway through the pulling stage).  And if you can read a nice, thorough recipe--don't know if The Joy of Cooking has candy recipes, but their cooking recipes tend to have enough instructions even when I'm new to a topic--try to find something that explains when you've done enough pulling.  I'm not sure I judged that part right, but it was getting really stiff--I should've re-heated a bit and pulled more. 

And I initially poured part of ours onto waxed paper and part onto parchment, and the stuff on the waxed paper stuck like crazy, while the parchment didn't.  Though if you have any silpat pads, even better, they'd let you start forming the shape with the silpat but without burning your hands. 

Have fun!!!