Sponge toffee is a sugary confection with a light, rigid, sponge-like texture.

The main ingredients are typically brown sugar

Brown sugar

Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white...

, corn syrup

Corn syrup

Corn syrup is a food syrup, which is made from the starch of maize and contains varying amounts of maltose and higher oligosaccharides, depending on the grade. Corn syrup is used in foods to soften texture, add volume, prevent crystallization of sugar, and enhance flavor...

 (or molasses

Molasses

Molasses is a viscous by-product of the processing of sugar cane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. The word molasses comes from the Portuguese word melaço, which ultimately comes from mel, the Latin word for "honey". The quality of molasses depends on the maturity of the sugar cane or sugar beet,...

 or golden syrup

Golden syrup

Golden syrup is a pale treacle. It is a thick, amber-colored form of inverted sugar syrup, made in the process of refining sugar cane juice into sugar, or by treatment of a sugar solution with acid. It is used in a variety of baking recipes and desserts. It has an appearance similar to honey, and...

 in the Commonwealth

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

) and baking soda, sometimes with an acid such as vinegar

Vinegar

Vinegar is a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. Slow methods generally are used with traditional...

. The baking soda and acid react to form carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

 which is trapped in the highly viscous mixture. When acid is not used, thermal decomposition of the baking soda releases carbon dioxide. The lattice structure is formed while the sugar is liquid, then the toffee sets hard.

It is generally home-made, and a popular recipe for children, but is also made commercially and sold in small blocks, or covered in chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

 (popular examples being the Crunchie

Crunchie

Crunchie is a brand of chocolate bar with a "honeycombed" sugar centre. It is made by Cadbury UK and was originally launched by J. S. Fry & Sons in 1929...

 or Violet Crumble

Violet Crumble

Violet Crumble is an Australian chocolate bar manufactured in Campbellfield near Melbourne, Australia, by Nestlé. It is one of the best selling chocolate bars in Australia. Violet Crumble is also common in Hawaii and is available in other places, including Hong Kong.The bar is a crumbly sponge...

 bar).

Regional names

It is known by a wide variety of names including:

• honeycomb toffee in Britain
• honeycomb in South Africa
  South Africa
  The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
  
  , Australia
  Australia
  Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
  
   and Britain
• yellow man in Northern Ireland
• puff candy in Scotland
  Scotland
  Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
  
  
• golden crunchers
• hokey pokey in New Zealand
  New Zealand
  New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
  
   (especially in the Kiwi classic Hokey Pokey ice cream
  Hokey pokey (ice cream)
  Hokey pokey is a flavour of ice cream in Australia and New Zealand, consisting of plain vanilla ice cream with small, solid lumps of sponge toffee - known as "hokey pokey" in New Zealand...
  
  ).
• sponge candy (tire éponge) in Quebec
  Quebec
  Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
  
  , Canada
  Canada
  Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
  
  , Western New York
  Western New York
  Western New York is the westernmost region of the state of New York. It includes the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara Falls, the surrounding suburbs, as well as the outlying rural areas of the Great Lakes lowlands, the Genesee Valley, and the Southern Tier. Some historians, scholars and others...
  
  , and Northwest Pennsylvania, USA
• sea foam in Maine
  Maine
  Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
  
  , Washington, Oregon
  Oregon
  Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
  
  , Utah
  Utah
  Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
  
  , California
  California
  California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
  
   and Michigan
  Michigan
  Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
  
  , USA
• fairy food candy or angel food candy in Wisconsin
  Wisconsin
  Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
  
  , USA
• bonfire toffee in Britain
• cinder toffee in Britain
• Turkish honey (Törökméz) in Hungary
  Hungary
  Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
  
  

Cinder toffee and bonfire toffee are also used to refer to brittle treacle toffee