Homemade Toffee Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between English toffee and regular toffee? ›

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.

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.

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.

Store homemade toffee in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week or in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Brittles and toffees accumulate small amounts of acid from the browning reactions that occur during cooking. This is one reason why the baking soda is added at the end of cooking. The soda reacts with the acid to make bubbles, and the syrup foams.

Toffee – the hard, sweet candy – is an old-fashioned treat, so you might not hear the name very much around modern candy shops. But this classic candy is an enjoyable delight that bursts with flavor at each bite. What is toffee, you ask? Basically, it's hardened caramel (more on that later).

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.

The most common recommendation is constant and even stirring from beginning to end. I say that is unnecessary too! After much trial and error (clumps of grainy caramelize sugar swimming is a pool of melted butter) I have come up with my own method that is foolproof and perfect every time.

If the butterfat separates out then usually this is due to the mixture being either heated or cooled too quickly, which "shocks" the mixture and causes the fat to separate out. It can also be caused by the mixture being heated unevenly (if the pan has a thin base and has hot spots).

This recipe includes a dash of vinegar which will help keep the colour of the toffee clear and bright and banish any cloudiness.

Why did a toffee fail to set despite using the correct ingredients? ›

This usually happens when the toffee mixture is heated too quickly or at too high of a temperature. Make sure to use medium heat (or medium-low) and go SLOW!

If you don't have cream of tartar, you can use lemon juice as a substitute. No lemon juice? Use white vinegar, which, like lemon juice is acidic, for a similar effect. We recommend replacing the cream of tartar with twice as much lemon juice or white vinegar.

Undercooked toffee won't be anything more than a caramel sauce. But overcooked toffee will be just slightly crunchier (almost unrecognizably). So, always err on the side of over-cooking!

Here's how you know when the toffee is ready. Keep one of the almonds near the pan. It's your color cue. When the toffee is the color of the almond skin, it's done!

The ingredients that make up butter toffee include unsalted butter, granulated sugar, light corn syrup, water, vanilla, almonds, and dark chocolate. You can choose a different type of chocolate, but when I was working on this recipe, I found semi-sweet chocolate too sweet.

English toffee and American toffee diverged with the preferred use of sugar type. English toffee is made with brown sugar, while American-style toffee, known as buttercrunch is made with white table sugar (granulated sugar). Buttercrunch is typically dusted with crushed almonds or other nuts.

If the butterfat separates out then usually this is due to the mixture being either heated or cooled too quickly, which "shocks" the mixture and causes the fat to separate out.

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 .

In fact, if you want to get technical about it, toffee is just butterscotch that hardens when cooked to a higher temperature (as opposed to softer butterscotch that is heated to a lower, more pourable consistency). When toffee is topped with chocolate and nuts, it is often referred to as English Toffee.