Bonfire Night food with less sugar

On 5 November, the bonfire and the fireworks come with food that hardly changes from year to year: treacle toffee broken into pieces, squares of parkin and apples dipped in toffee. Bonfire Night food is part of the ritual, and you can keep those flavours on the table with less sugar, starting with toffee, the first sweet worth trying with a different sweetener. Plan this year's toffee tin before the first rocket goes up!

Bonfire Night food at a glance:

• One toffee, two names: treacle toffee and bonfire toffee are the same hard sweet made with black treacle.
• A different set: toffee sweetened with xylitol or erythritol usually comes out grainier and less glassy than the classic.
• Treacle counts: swapping the white sugar still leaves the sugars that black treacle brings.
• Dogs: anything made with xylitol, homemade or bought, belongs out of a dog's reach.
• From our shelf: vegan fudge for guests who avoid dairy and lollipops sweetened with isomalt, erythritol and steviol glycosides.

What food is traditional on Bonfire Night?

The traditional sweets of 5 November are treacle toffee, parkin and toffee apples, eaten outdoors alongside jacket potatoes and bangers. The savoury side of Bonfire Night food can stay as it is, since the sugar in this menu comes from the three sweets.

Treacle toffee and bonfire toffee

Both names belong to one hard, dark toffee made from black treacle, sugar and butter, and „bonfire toffee” is the name it takes around 5 November. The mixture is boiled to a high temperature and then cools into a brittle sheet that snaps into pieces, and that glassy texture is hard to reproduce with other sweeteners. The recipe contains butter, so for vegan guests the closest sweet on a shop shelf is vegan fudge, which has a soft, chewy texture.

Parkin and toffee apples: Bonfire Night recipes

Parkin is a dense cake made with oatmeal, ginger and black treacle, cut into squares to eat by the fire. Toffee apples are whole apples dipped in hot toffee that hardens into a shell. Both Bonfire Night recipes depend on treacle or toffee, so a smaller square of parkin or a thinner coat on each apple puts less sugar in every serving.

How do you make bonfire toffee with less sugar?

Replace the white sugar with xylitol or erythritol and cut the black treacle down to the amount that still gives the dark colour and flavour. Treacle is a sugar in its own right, and every spoonful of it that goes into the mixture adds some sugar to the finished bonfire toffee.

Sugar-free toffee with xylitol or erythritol

On a UK pack, „sugar-free” means no more than 0.5 g of sugars per 100 g, and polyols such as xylitol and erythritol do not count as sugars. A sugar-free toffee made at home would therefore leave out the treacle as well and rely on a fine white powder such as the Finnish birch xylitol 250 g we sell, which gives a paler sweet with a different flavour.

Three details from the xylitol label and product page matter for toffee:

• Sugars and polyols: the label gives 0.2 g of sugars and 99.8 g of polyols per 100 g, so the sweetness comes from polyols.
• Amount: the product page notes that large amounts can have a laxative effect and suggests introducing xylitol gradually.
• Dogs: the product page also warns that xylitol is highly toxic to dogs, so a tray of toffee cooling on the worktop needs to be well out of their reach.

The sugar products and sweeteners category lets you compare xylitol with other sweeteners before the first batch.

Does sugar-free toffee set like treacle toffee?

A toffee sweetened with xylitol or erythritol usually stays softer and grainier than the classic, because polyols do not cool into glass the way sugar does. Treacle toffee is boiled to the hard crack stage, 149–154 °C, and as it cools, the syrup sets into a hard, glassy sheet with very little water left in it.

Xylitol and erythritol tend to form crystals as they cool, which gives a chalky bite and sometimes a cool feeling in the mouth. Erythritol crystallises quickly, while xylitol draws in more moisture from the air, so a xylitol batch is more likely to turn sticky on the surface.

Treat the first tray as a test and judge the texture only once the toffee has cooled completely. If it comes out soft, cut it into small squares with a knife, since a soft toffee bends when you try to break it. A few pieces are enough to tell whether the recipe deserves a full tin for 5 November.

Bonfire Night food ideas from the shop shelf

When there is no time to boil toffee, the sweet part of the evening can come ready-made. Two products work here for different reasons: one is made without milk, the other is a lollipop on a stick.

Vegan fudge as a bonfire toffee alternative

Vegan fudge contains no milk and carries a V (vegan) mark. On our shelf, it comes in 150 g packs and more than ten flavours, including toffee, salted caramel, cocoa and coconut, with a GF mark and ingredients from organic farming.

The toffee-flavour fudge and the fudge sweetened with agave and dates both still contain sugars: the first uses coconut sugar and lists 61 g of sugars per 100 g, and the second is made without white sugar and lists 67 g. Both work best as a dairy-free choice served in small pieces.

Sugar-free lollipops for children

Bunny Ninja lollipops come 12 to a 120 g pack, in strawberry and cherry, sweetened with isomalt, erythritol and steviol glycosides and made with 1% freeze-dried fruit powders. The label lists 0.6 g of sugars per 100 g.

A lollipop is easy to hold in gloves at a cold display. The same sugar-free sweets shelf also stocks Frank & Oli biscuits and bars from NICK'S and Bob Snail, which you can add to the tin for the evening.

Bonfire party snacks that travel well

At a fireworks display, the food that works best is easy to eat with one hand, and a warm drink matters as much as the snacks. Nuts, dried fruit and popcorn fit that description and need nothing more than a lidded box.

Popcorn, nuts and dried fruit

Fill the box from the dried fruit and nuts section.

Four options from that section that are easy to take along:

• Brazil nuts: large nuts that need no preparation and stay whole in a bag.
• Dried prunes: soft and chewy, they give a sweet bite next to the nuts.
• Freeze-dried raspberries: light and crisp, with a sharp fruit flavour.
• Apple chips: crunchy slices that echo the toffee apples on the table.

Popcorn made at home the day before is one of the lightest bonfire party snacks to carry.

Warm drinks in a flask

A flask of hot chocolate keeps hands warm between the fireworks, and all three blog recipes on how to make hot chocolate at home start from cocoa powder. Cocoa powder leaves the choice of sweetener, and how much of it goes in, up to you.

Bonfire Night food with less sugar: our shortlist

Bonfire Night does not need a new menu: treacle toffee, parkin and toffee apples can all stay if you decide in advance where the sugar goes. For the toffee, that means choosing between a softer xylitol batch and the classic recipe in smaller pieces, and for parkin and toffee apples the size of the portion does the same job. Make that decision while writing the shopping list, and the evening itself can belong to the fire, the fireworks and a warm flask.

Frequently asked questions about bonfire night food

Treacle toffee vs bonfire toffee: is there a difference?

The recipe is the same, and that hard black-treacle toffee also goes by Plot toffee or Tom Trot.

Can you make toffee with xylitol?

You can: birch xylitol measures like sugar, one to one, in drinks and baking, so a small first batch can use the amount the recipe gives for sugar.

Why should xylitol sweets be kept away from dogs?

In dogs, xylitol can cause a fast drop in blood sugar soon after it is eaten, so a bag of homemade toffee left in a coat pocket or on a garden table is a real risk at a bonfire party.

How do you stop homemade bonfire toffee going sticky?

Boil the mixture right up to the hard crack stage and keep the cooled pieces in a closed tin, because undercooked toffee and damp air both leave the surface tacky.

What Bonfire Night food suits children?

For children, a lollipop on a stick is simpler than hard toffee that has to be broken into pieces. Pour them a warm drink from the flask too, such as hot chocolate made with cocoa powder.