The Twelve Treats of Christmas: English Toffee

This is a family recipe, at least in the sense that my grandmother made it often and had perfected it to... well, perfection, something her grandchildren have yet to achieve. I've made it quite a few times as an adult, maybe once or twice to my satisfaction, but never as good as Grandma's.

But don't let that scare you off: just like brownies, even if it's not quite as good as Grandma's, it's still good! You can google English toffee and find a million variations of the same recipe, and several pages with step by step instructions and pictures (even one for engineers!). The recipe, though, is pretty basic, and not that difficult.

I've actually halved my grandma's recipe, just because I hate using a whole pound of butter in one fell swoop like that. Also, it might possibly be easier to work with, at least I've found that to be true for me.

Grandma's English Toffee
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 TBSP water
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts

Prepare a cookie sheet by covering it with parchment or wax paper. Set aside.

Place butter, sugar and water in heavy saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly. Once the butter is melted and mixture is blended, continue stirring constantly, watching carefully. First it will look like this:


Just melted butter and sugar. Keep stirring.

Then it will start to bubble a little, and then more and then more. Keep stirring. It will start to thicken with big heavy bubbles. Keep stirring:


Then it will get very heavy and thick with slow fat bubbles. You're looking for a slightly deeper shade of brown (but not too much, because then it's burnt!). It's hard to tell the color in the picture, but here's what the mixture will look like (approximately):


Now it's ready. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Pour into prepared pan, spreading until you have a nice smooth layer (it won't go all the way to the edges because this is half the recipe). See the nice deep shade of brown?


While it's still hot, sprinkle the chocolate chips (my grandmother always used 3 Hershey's bars, actually) on the surface and allow them to melt for a few minutes.


Once they've melted, spread them around until you have a smooth chocolate layer:


Sprinkle the chopped nuts onto the chocolate, pressing them in slightly so they stay. I've left a portion of my toffee without nuts because my DH can't have them, so if you can't have/don't want nuts, feel free to leave them off like I did:

Allow the toffee to set and the chocolate to harden, then peel off the wax or parchment paper and break into pieces. Store in refrigerator. (Nothing bad will happen to it at room temperature, but it's better for the chocolate to be in the fridge.)

That's it! All done!

When all is said and done, it's definitely a QUICK recipe. It does need to set and the chocolate takes a little time to harden up again, but other than that, it's about 15 minutes or so.

EASY is definitely debatable. A candy thermometer would take the guesswork out of the timing, because all you have to do is get the butter-sugar mixture to 300F. For some reason, I've never invested in a candy thermometer, even though they're inexpensive and I've always wanted one. However, it is possible to make this candy without the thermometer because to my knowledge, no one in my family has ever made it with a thermometer.

Since I've halved the recipe, it's CHEAP-er than it used to be! I feel like I'm getting more out of it when I use half the ingredients but the same size pan. The toffee layer is obviously not as thick as in the original recipe, but personally, I don't mind that. Less sugar, you know!

Should we just skip the last one? Here, let's just say it real quick and fast and quiet:
It's not healthy.

Whew. OK. Done with that. Moving on!


Don't they look delicious? They are! Try them yourself and see!