7 Easy Toffee Recipes For The Holidays (2024)

FAQs

Should you stir toffee while cooking? ›

It's important while the toffee cooks to only stir it occasionally. Constant stirring can cause the toffee to crystallize and separate. For those of you that need to know exactly how often you should stir, I would suggest erring on the side of not stirring more than stirring.

Sometimes the chocolate melts at a temperature that makes it shrink when it hardens, pulling it away from the toffee layer. If your chocolate isn't melting or spreading easily on the hot toffee in the sheet pan, use a hair dryer to re-melt the chocolate until it's workable.

For maximum taste and texture, we do recommend that you either enjoy your toffee immediately, or store it in a refrigerator or freezer. Once opened, unrefrigerated toffee will retain maximum freshness for about a week. Refrigeration adds 3-6 months of shelf life, while freezing adds up to a year or more.

Pour the toffee onto the prepared baking sheet pan, allowing it to spread. Let cool for about 20 minutes. Use a mallet, rolling pin, or heavy object to crack the batch of toffee into small bits.

Low and slow

Simmering the syrup for English toffee to the requisite 300°F temperature can (and should) be a slow process — up to 20 minutes or so. 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.

You need a very sturdy pan which is KEY to even heat distribution. Thinner, cheaper pans can scorch the cooking candy and/or cook it unevenly. Here are some great choices: Anolon Nouvelle Copper and Cooks Standard. I own a couple pricier copper pots because of the amount of candy I make.

Sometimes some of the butter separates out of the toffee and concentrates on the surface. If it does, the chocolate isn't going to adhere to the toffee. Try blotting up the butter with paper towels - the surface should be matte, rather than shiny. Then you can spread the layer of chocolate on top.

Rub the cube of butter around the sides of the pan before adding sugar. This will help keep sugar crystals from clinging to the sides. When adding the sugar, place it in the center of the pan to keep sugar crystals off the pan sides. During cooking, occasionally wash the sides of the pan with a brush dipped in water.

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.

Should toffee be hard or 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 .

Your toffee is better off overcooked than undercooked! 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!

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.

English toffee is the epitome of classic toffee. It's rich and buttery, with a firm snap and a crisp texture that doesn't stick to your teeth.

Use salted butter. Salt seems to stabilize the mixture. If you use unsalted butter, add ¼ teaspoon of salt per stick of butter in the recipe.

The butter, sugar and syrup are melted together and should form a smooth sauce. When the sauce cools it should remain amalgamated. 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.

Common Causes

One of the most common triggers is when the candy has undergone an abrupt temperature shift, either becoming too cold or too hot in a very short period of time.

For cooking: cook the toffee until it turns nutty brown. Don't stop cooking it until it's brown. Stop cooking it immediately as soon as it's brown.