Hokey pokey is a good ole New Zealand favorite. It gives us NZ's iconic hokey pokey ice cream and other delights like Crunchie bars. It's also super easy to make and totally delicious on its own!

In this instructable I'll let you in on one of NZ's state secrets and give a couple of ideas to make hokey pokey even better :)

Step 1: Ingredients and Tools

Ingredients: This is a double mix - I find one is never enough....

10 Tbsp sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup - if you are lucky and live in NZ you can buy Chelsea golden syrup, otherwise look out for Lyles Golden Syrup in your supermarket :)
2 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda

Optionals:

Chocolate for melting
Vanilla ice cream

Tools:

Pot
Stirrer (a whisk or a stirring stick is fine)
Buttered tray

Step 2: Method

Mix the sugar and the golden syrup together and heat gently. Stir constantly till the sugar has dissolved. This does take a while so it's a good idea to get your kids involved.

Turn the heat up and bring the sugar mix to a boil, stirring gently occasionally to prevent burning.

Once the sugar starts to bubble, remove it from the heat and add the baking soda. Stir quickly to mix the soda through the sugar while it foams up. Good ole baking soda!

Quickly tip the mix into the buttered tray and spread it out with your spatula.

Leave to cool. The hokey pokey should crack when you flex your tin. if it doesn't, it isn't cool enough!

Turn the cooled hokey pokey out and break or cut into smaller pieces for eating. Gather the crumbs!

Go ahead and eat! It does need to be eaten pretty quickly, and/or kept in an airtight container to stop it going all sticky. Unless sticky is your thing..

Tip: Clean up in hot hot water. Fill the pot with hot water and leave it for a minute or two. The sugar will dissolve and make cleaning up the sticky mess easy!

Step 3: Chocolate Coated Hokey Pokey....

Take your chunks of fabulous hokey pokey and step it up a notch.

Melt some chocolate. I chop a bit of chocolate up and melt it in the microwave - heating it for 30 second bursts and stirring until it has reached a good consistency.

Take some of your larger chunks and dip/spoon chocolate over them. I half dipped mine so you could still see the golden glow of the fab hokey pokey.

Put the pieces on a bit of baking paper and pop them in the fridge to set the chocolate. Delicious!

You will need to keep these in the fridge to keep the chocolate hard - and to hide them from your family!

Step 4: Hokey Pokey Ice Cream...

Now... what to do with the crumbs.......

Hokey pokey ice cream! Take your favorite vanilla ice cream and mix through the crumbs from breaking the hokey pokey up. I found I had to chop up some of the bigger pieces to keep up with demand for hokey pokey ice cream!

If you don't want to wait until the ice cream is soft enough to mix the crumbs in, just sprinkle them on top...... mMMmmmmmm.....