It wouldn't be a Christmas season without making my mom's homemade English Toffee recipe. She's the reason I started this blog after all, (read the story here!) so it's only appropriate that I share one of her most famous recipes with all of you along with 13-layer rainbow jello.
This English Toffee candy is so simple to make and tastes delicious!Like, melt in your mouth delicious.
So if you've ever wondered "how to make toffee" this post will show you how easy it is!
WHAT IS TOFFEE?
This English butter toffee recipe is a popular Christmas treat made with butter, sugar, and chocolate.
ENGLISH TOFFEE GIFTS
Homemade toffee is great for Neighbor gifts, teacher gifts, or visitors who stop by. Just package this English butter toffee little cellophane bags and tie with a ribbon for a quick gift!
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE TOFFEE:
What is English toffee made of?
1 pound real butter- do not use margarine (they don't call it a buttery English toffee recipe for no reason!)
1. First, melt the butter in a large saucepan on medium heat. Don't burn it! Once the butter starts melting, attach the candy thermometer to side of the pan like this:
2. Once the butter melts, stir in the water, sugar, and light corn syrup. You'll cook it until it reaches 300 degrees F, or the hard crack stage. This is a hard toffee recipe, so be sure it reaches the full temperature.
It will take about 15 minutes to reach 300 degrees. Just keep stirring. So before you start making this Toffee, make sure you have a good 20 minutes or so that you can dedicate to just this!
3. Once the old English toffee mixture has reaches that temperature, you pour the super hot, sweet-smelling hot toffee mixture onto an extra large cookie sheet(*aff. link).
4. Then you sprinkle semi-sweet chocolate chips onto the toffee. And if you keep your chocolate chips in the freezer like I do and are worried about them not melting, do not fear! They will melt just fine.
You'll want a bowl scraper to smooth the chocolate chips all over the toffee. Keep smoothing until the chocolate has melted and you have a nice, smooth layer on top.
5. For English toffee with nuts, just sprinkle chopped walnuts, or your favorite nuts, on top at this point. You can certainly make it without nuts, too.
6. Take the cookie sheet(*aff. link) of goodness and place outside (if it's nice and cold!) or in the refrigerator and leave there until the toffee has hardened and the chocolate is no longer runny.
7. Once the toffee has cooled completely, hit with the back of a knife to make uneven pieces. Once you have one section broken, you can even use your hands to break the rest.
8. Store in an airtight container or package up for yummy gifts.
See how easy making toffee can be? Seriously, you got this!
READY TO MAKE THE BEST ENGLISH TOFFEE?
I would say I would send you some of ours, but the truth is: our entire batch is already gone. Guess we'll just need to make another! 🙂
A simple but amazing English Toffee, perfect for holiday gifts, parties, or treats!
Ingredients
Scale
1 pound real butter, do not use margarine
1 cup water
2 ½ cups white sugar
4 Tablespoons light corn syrup
about 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
chopped walnuts, if desired
candy thermometer
wooden spoon
Instructions
Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Attach the candy thermometer to the pan now.
Once the butter is melted, add in the water, white sugar and corn syrup.
Cook the mixture until it reaches 300 degrees F (hard crack) on a candy thermometer. This will take about 12-14 minutes. Make sure to stir continually so that it doesn't burn. Use a wooden spoon-- a plastic spoon will melt!
Once it reaches 300 F, pour the mixture on an ungreased cookie sheet (10x15 is good).
Sprinkle chocolate chips on the top and spread with a bowl scraper. (They will melt). Once you spread the chocolate and it's all melted, sprinkle the chopped nuts if you are going to add them. Cool until hard. To speed up the process, place outside in the cold weather or place in the refrigerator.
Once cool and hard, use the back of a knife to break the English Toffee into pieces. Store in an air-tight container.
Prep Time:3 minutes
Cook Time:14 minutes
Category:Treats
Keywords: english toffee, toffee, butter toffee, christmas candy
Save this British toffee recipe for later! Enjoy one of our favorite Christmas goodies!
Don't hurry this gradual transformation; syrup that doesn't reach 300°F, or close to it, will make candy with timid flavor and chewy (not crunchy) texture. Think you can save time by bringing the syrup to a full rolling, popping boil in order for it to darken more quickly? Think again.
If the two elements melt unevenly it can result in separation. If you have good stovetop burners, we recommend turning them to medium-low to allow the butter and sugar to melt gently in the beginning stages. If the heat is too high, but butter might melt too quickly and can separate from the sugar.
Americanized toffee may include nuts, while a completely traditional British toffee will not. On the other hand, English toffee uses pure cane sugar, brown sugar, or molasses as its sweet base and always involves chocolate.
Stirring too quickly or too often can cause the toffee to separate. Moderate the heat as needed – turn it down if the toffee is boiling or cooking too fast so it doesn't burn.
You might wonder why the toffee recipe includes baking soda. It is added at the end of the boiling stage and creates lots and lots of bubbles. These bubbles help to lighten the texture of the finished toffee, resulting in an easier-to-bite candy.
But overcooked toffee will be just slightly crunchier (almost unrecognizably). So, always err on the side of over-cooking! Tip 2 explains how to do so! In order to avoid your chocolate turning white, you'll want to let it set in a room temperature spot without exposure to any drafts.
As the toffee cools and the molten sugar crystals become solid again, they are attracted to the 'seed' forming new lumps of tiny crystals – hence the grainy texture. This can also happen if the toffee is stirred, or agitated, after it has begun to boil or on cooling (as happened with this pink-tinted toffee).
Once boiling, cook, stirring only 2 to 3 times, until it turns a dark amber color and the temperature reaches 285 degrees F (137 degrees C) on a candy thermometer, 20 to 30 minutes. Immediately pour toffee into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top and let sit until they soften, 1 to 2 minutes.
The English toffee eaten with regularity in America is also called buttercrunch. What's the difference? Primarily, the difference rests in the ingredients. Toffee in Britain is made with brown sugar, whereas buttercrunch is made with white granulated sugar.
Although named English toffee, it bears little resemblance to the wide range of confectionery known as toffee currently available in the United Kingdom. However, one can still find this product in the UK under the name "butter crunch". Conversely, in Italy they are known as "mou candies".
Lesson #2: You Can Stir, But Use Severe Discipline
At least for a little while. Too much agitation may cause the mixture to crystallize or separate, but too little stirring may cause the mixture to heat unevenly and burn. The latter is a highly likely outcome due to the addition of butter in toffee recipes.
This should NOT be a non-stick pan, because non-stick pans allow crystals to be pulled into the cooking toffee and will cause the batch to crystallize. The heavy pan distributes heavy evenly so the toffee cooks without burning.
This means that as boiling continues, a portion of the sugar separates into its constituent parts—glucose and fructose. Adding cream of tartar and a dash of vinegar to a toffee recipe helps bring about this change.
If your toffee doesn't have a hard texture (where you can snap it in half) you did not cook it long enough. Again, the 5-minutes is just a guide. Cook it until it is the color of a brown bag.
If you find that your candy is very sticky and chewy it's most likely because you didn't cook the brown sugar and butter long enough. Make sure it comes to a good roiling boil and continues to boil for the entire 3 minutes. This toffee will be slightly chewy, but it shouldn't be very sticky or super soft.
Toffee is a hard candy made by cooking a sugar syrup with butter to the hard crack stage, 300–310°F (149–154°C), and then pouring it out to cool. It can have inclusions or not, and it can be made either very dense and hard or can be lightened by adding baking soda when the candy is almost done cooking .
The soft-crack stage occurs at 270 to 290 F. At this stage, the sugar concentration of the syrup is 95 percent, which determines how pliable or brittle the candy will be. The soft crack stage is used for saltwater taffy, nougat, toffee, and butterscotch.
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