Honeycomb Candy Without Baking Soda: What the Sources Say

No source we opened shows honeycomb that foams without baking soda. Here is why, what baking powder, vinegar and citric acid do to the syrup, and a no-soda brittle card. Not tested by us.

Honeycomb candy without baking soda has no sourced foaming version, so this page gives a flat honey almond brittle instead: sugar, honey and toasted almonds, cooked to 300 F, about 1 hour 25 minutes in all, with 0.7 mg of sodium per piece.

Nobody on our team has made or tasted this brittle. It is a card built from published sources, and every claim below says where it comes from. For the standard foaming recipe, see honey and baking soda honeycomb. If your real complaint is the soda taste, why honeycomb candy tastes like baking soda has the dose table. The brittle idea comes from Ask Nigella, which we adapted and did not copy.

The honest answer first

Recipe writers repeat one warning. Do not put baking powder where honeycomb calls for baking soda. Five sources we opened say so, one blogger admits she used powder the first time and had to make the batch again, and others say there is no substitute at all. None reports a successful swap. None gives a proportion.

So the short version is a choice. Keep the soda, lower the dose if you taste it, or drop the foam and make something else from the same syrup.

The Food Science / Lab Kitchen Note

Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). According to Scientific American, it starts to break down at about 176 F (80 C) into sodium carbonate, water and carbon dioxide: 2 NaHCO3 gives Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2. The carbon dioxide is the gas. Syrup at 300 F is far above that threshold, and the Exploratorium puts hard crack at 300-310 F (about 149-154 C) with the syrup about 99 percent sugar. So the bubbles get trapped as the syrup stiffens. Honeycomb recipes typically add the soda off the heat, once the syrup has reached that range.

It follows, by our reading, that a pot of sugar and honey with no bicarbonate has no gas source. Heat alone drives off water, not gas bubbles. That is why the brittle on this page sets flat.

Baking powder looks like a fix, but it is a different product. The American Society of Baking describes it as a bicarbonate, a leavening acid and a filler such as cornstarch. The filler keeps the actives apart. Single-acting powders release gas in one stage, double-acting in two. The typical dose it gives, 3-5 percent of flour weight, is a cake figure, not a candy one.

What that does inside hot syrup is our inference, not a sourced result. Powder has less bicarbonate per teaspoon, and the acid and starch ride along. USDA lists double-acting powder (sodium aluminum sulfate type) at 10,600 mg sodium per 100 g, against 27,400 mg for baking soda. At 4.6 g per teaspoon that is about 488 mg versus about 1,260 mg per teaspoon, our math. The Flavor Bender adds that powder could give the candy an undesirable flavor.

Acid is the other piece. Food Crumbles, a single baking-science blog, says the acid in honeycomb comes from the slightly acidic sugars and corn syrup. It says vinegar added to hot sugar without soda does little for bubbles and can invert the sugar, which makes it sticky. Citric acid added at the end adds acid, and added early it inverts the sugar. Gelatin, per its author, will not work in honeycomb.

Honeycomb options compared: what the sources report

This is a comparison of published data, not a record of batches we cooked. Sodium per teaspoon comes from USDA, with our math at 4.6 g per teaspoon. Where nothing is sourced, the cell says so.

The sodium per piece of the Flavor Bender card is for its own recipe and piece size. It is not a like-for-like with the brittle on this page.

Substitutes and swaps

The 3 to 1 baking powder swap in our baking soda replacement guide is for baked goods. It does not carry over to candy, and the post on using baking soda instead of baking powder covers the other direction.

Hokey pokey without bicarbonate of soda: the brittle route

Hokey pokey, sponge candy and cinder toffee are names often used for honeycomb-style candy. A reader asked Ask Nigella how to avoid tasting the bicarbonate in her hokey pokey. The answer: in that recipe there is no substitute. It suggests making a praline or brittle from the syrup, poured over blanched, toasted almonds or salted peanuts.

That is the idea behind the card. Same sugar and honey as our honeycomb card, same hard-crack target, and nothing that makes gas. The nuts do the work the bubbles did. They give the candy something to be besides sugar.

Without soda there is no foam step; the thermometer tells you when to stop.

What about the soda taste?

People who taste the soda even at small doses get practical answers rather than a swap: use less, sift, and stir only until the streaks are gone. Another cook notes that too much soda leaves a metallic aftertaste. Three sources said versions of this.

The Food Crumbles low run is the only sourced number we have: 1/4 tsp per 150 g of sugar, about 0.8 g per 100 g by our calculation, gave small, sparse bubbles and a denser candy. So there is a floor. If you want to stay with honeycomb, the dose comparison shows the published range and a lower-dose card.

How the sources hold up

The temperature stages and the altitude rule come from the Exploratorium's page on sugar stages, a science museum resource. The breakdown temperature and the equation come from a Scientific American article on baking soda, a science magazine piece. The description of baking powder comes from an American Society of Baking article, a trade association page about baked goods, not candy. Nutrition figures come from USDA FoodData Central for baking soda, baking powder, granulated sugar and honey.

The rest are recipe-site and blog sources. Ask Nigella is a reader Q&A page on a celebrity cook's site. The Flavor Bender is a recipe blog. Food Crumbles is a single hobby source, so treat its claims as one cook's account. Cake by Courtney and Hill Country Chocolate are recipe blogs that dismiss a swap in a line. We found no scientific study on honeycomb foaming or on baking powder in candy, so none is cited. Any mechanism for powder on this page is our inference from baking chemistry.

Common mistakes

Swapping in baking powder by habit. Five sources say no and none gives a proportion. Using the same amount you would of soda is a guess with no backing. If you need no soda, make the brittle.

Adding vinegar or citric acid early. Food Crumbles says acid added to hot sugar can invert the sugar and make it sticky. If you add acid at all, it belongs at the end, and no source gives an amount.

Leaving the pieces out. Cooks agree that honeycomb pulls moisture from the air and turns sticky or soft, so it goes in an airtight container once cool, and it is best made on a dry day. The same sugar syrup is the base here, so treat the brittle the same way.

Storing the brittle

Keep the pieces in an airtight container at room temperature, in a dry spot. For uncoated honeycomb, The Flavor Bender says about one week airtight and no fridge or freezer. Hill Country Chocolate allows the freezer, so sources disagree, and we have no sourced guidance for the brittle's shelf life or for freezing it. If pieces turn sticky, we have no sourced fix. Making a fresh batch on a dry day avoids the problem.

Nutrition note: calories and sodium per piece

Values on the card are estimates calculated from typical USDA FoodData Central values for granulated sugar, honey and raw almonds, per one of 16 pieces. The almond values are typical USDA figures, not taken from our brief. No salt is counted, and the almonds are assumed unsalted.

The result is about 169 calories, 24.9 g of sugars, 2.8 g of protein and 0.7 mg of sodium per piece. The reason sodium is so low is that no baking soda goes in. USDA lists baking soda at about 1,260 mg per teaspoon, and The Flavor Bender's honeycomb card carries 149 mg per piece. Our own honeycomb card holds 158 mg per piece.