English Toffee

I've made English Toffee every year for about 7 or 8 years with very mixed results. I've thrown out probably half of the batches. I think it has to do with the humidity in Houston! But, this year, I tried a slightly different recipe. And, this one uses a thermometer which takes some of the "guess work" out of it. The toffee turned out wonderful!!! So, here's a link to the recipe at "cooking for engineers" - complete with lots of photos! Just in case the link doesn't work at some time in the photo, I thought I'd post the recipe here, too. (I used my own wording.)

Ingredients:

6 oz. (170 g) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I would use 12 oz)

1 cup (200 g) sugar
about 1/2 cup (60 g) chopped almonds (I used sliced)
1 (5 mL) teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter

In a medium saucepan (but large enough for volume to double), melt butter with sugar, salt, and about 2 tsp water over low heat. Stir occasionally.

When everything is melted, increase temperature to medium-high and stir constantly. The butter and sugar will rise then collapse and thicken. Use a thermometer to measure the temperature. You should cook it until the temperature reaches 300 degrees F but before it reaches 320 degrees F.

Remove heat and stir in vanilla extract. Add the almonds and stir. (The recipe actually calls for the almonds to be placed on top of the chocolate, but I mix them in with the sugar and butter.)

Pour the mixture onto non-stick 9x13 cookie sheet and smooth with a spatula almost to edges of cookie sheet. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. Wait a minute or 2 for chocolate to start melting, then smooth the chocolate with the spatula. Place cookie sheet in refridgerator to cool and harden. Break into pieces and store in fridge.