English Toffee Recipe
If you’ve ever felt intimidated by candy making, give this English toffee recipe a try. One of our favorite holiday recipes to make for family and friends.
Servings 16 1 oz servings
Calories 295kcal
Equipment
- baking sheet
- foil
- sturdy pan
- wooden spoon
- measuring cup
- measuring spoons
- spatula
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter DO NOT USE MARGARINE
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- pinch salt
- 1 cup almonds
- 1 cup chocolate chips or melting chocolate
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with foil. If you'd like to have nuts in your toffee, toss a handful of almonds onto the baking sheet. Set aside.
- Heat all of your ingredients (except for the nuts and chocolate) in a nice sturdy saucepan on med heat until butter is melted. Turn temp up to med-high and stir constantly until mixture comes to a boil.
- Set your timer for 5 minutes and DO NOT let ANYTHING disturb you while you stir. You must keep stirring your butter/sugar mixture so that it does not burn. And you must use a WOODEN spoon.
- Keep stirring until your timer goes off. It may even smoke a tiny bit and that is ok. If you are really concerned, lift you pan off of the burner (while you are still stirring) to remove it from the heat, but still stir until your timer goes off.
- Immediately pour hot toffee onto your foil-lined baking sheet. If you added nuts to your baking sheet, pour the toffee over the nuts.
- The toffee will be about 1/4-1/2" thick. Do not scrape the bottom of the pan. As you pour, the bottom will brown and you don’t want that in your toffee.
- Fill your pan with hot water and set it aside. It will start dissolving the toffee left inside and make it easier to clean.
- Let cool. It should harden within a couple of minutes.
- Melt Ghirardelli bricks or wafers, Wilton melting chocolate, chocolate chips, or any other variety of melting chocolate in the microwave at 30-second intervals until smooth.
- Spread across your toffee with a small spatula or butter knife. I use about 2 Ghirardelli bricks per batch. If you melt too much that’s ok, it will harden again and you can just microwave it again another time for another use.
- Sprinkle with sliced almonds, if desired, while the chocolate is still soft. After it has set up, break toffee into pieces.
Video
Notes
Here are some more helpful hints for making this English toffee recipe.
- Do NOT double the recipe
- You must use a WOODEN spoon
- Use a clean, dry pan for each new batch.
- Cook over high- medium/high. (My stove is gas and tends to cook really hot, really fast. So I usually drop the heat to medium for my toffee, but in years past when I had an electric flat top stove, med-high worked best.)
- The 5 minute cook time is just a guide. If you hit 5 minutes and your toffee still isn't the color of a brown paper bag, add an extra minute. Cook times vary on each stove.
Nutrition
Calories: 295kcal