From now until Christmas is boom time for confectioners, and this year, more than ever, there’s a profusion of nostalgic websites. “A Quarter of…” website (www.aquarterof.co.uk) is designed like a kid’s comic and offers all those old-fashioned goodies that used to be weighed from jars on the local sweet-shop shelf. And what could be more nostalgic than toffee?

What is the difference between toffee, caramel and fudge?

Caramel, fudge, Scottish tablet, toffee, butterscotch, etc, all belong to the same family of sugar confectionery, but vary slightly in the way they’re made, in their ingredients and, most importantly, the temperature to which they are heated. That said, the distinction between each style isn’t always that pronounced. In the case of toffee, each sweet-maker has a different, “secret” recipe, which will produce toffee that ranges from chewy (this is what some people would call caramel) to brittle. For example, at the world-famous Toffee Shop in Penrith, Cumbria, Neil Boustead produces a toffee that he says is, “neither soft, nor brittle – somewhere in-between”. Fudge is the most obviously different texture-wise, as the mixture of butter, milk and sugar is beaten while hot to affect the crystallisation and give it the grainy texture that the other members of this sweet family don’t share.

What goes into toffee?

While some toffee wrappers, with all their emulsifiers and flavourings, make for a long read, at the Toffee Shop, Boustead uses only sugar, butter, syrup and vinegar, replacing the syrup with black treacle for his treacle toffee. Treacle, or molasses – the thick syrup that is a by-product of turning sugar cane or beet into sugar – gives the toffee a pleasantly burnt edge. “The vinegar, which you’ll find in a lot of traditional toffee recipes, just helps the toffee to set, and in the case of the treacle toffee gives a slight, characteristic sharpness,” says Boustead. When cool, the Toffee Shop’s slabs are broken by hand and wrapped individually.

What is cinder toffee?

Cinder toffee, or honeycomb, is different again: bicarbonate of soda is added to the hot toffee to froth it up and create bubbles. It is a speciality at Stockley’s Sweets in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, started by Malcolm Stockley in 1918. At its visitor centre, which has an old-fashioned frontage, you can through a viewing window watch it and other sweets being made.

Where to buy?

The Toffee Shop, Cumbria (01768 862008; www.thetoffeeshop.co.uk). Stockley’s Sweets, Lancashire (01254 232807; www.stockleys-sweets.co.uk).

Readers’ queries

I have built a small smokery, but I’m not sure how to get started on smoking products. Can you recommend a book on the subject?

Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton’s book Preserved (Kyle Cathie) has a whole chapter on home smoking; or visit Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage website (www.rivercottage.net) for his ideas on the subject.

If you have a food query, e-mail food.detective@thetimes.co.uk

Explore Food & Drink

• Gordon Ramsay

• Heston Blumenthal

• Recipes

• Wine

• Real Food

• Drinks

• Anjum Anand

• Eating Out

• Video Recipes

Times Recommends

• Top Ten most searched for recipes
• Chalet Chef 2010: the winning menus
• Gin and pomegranate jellies