One of the things I do to get ready for Christmas is make candy. We always have toffee, Chex Mix, bon bons, winter strawberries, divinity, fudge, dipped pretzels, peppermint crunch and sometimes other candies as well. Normally, at the end of the year, all the toffee and Chex Mix is gone and I have had to make more while I have leftovers of the rest of the candy that ends up getting thrown out. This year I decided there was no point in making all the other candies and I would instead just make 6 batches of Chex Mix and 16 batches of toffee.
You read that right, 16 batches of toffee. Everyone loves my toffee. Every year, people ask me for the recipe. One year I had a lucrative side business going selling tins of it to coworkers. Yes, it is THAT good. The only problem with giving my recipe to others is that I can't tell you a temperature to cook it at. This recipe was passed down by my Grandmother so we all learned how to tell it was done by color and texture. If you want to give it a try, here is the recipe, along with pictures that might help.
Ingredients:
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| These are the ingredients for 16 batches |
2 sticks salted butter (it HAS to be salted)
1 cup sugar
1 cup slivered almonds
1 Tb white corn syrup
1 Tb water
3 full size Hershey chocolate bars
The first step is to take a sheet of wax paper and put it on a cookie sheet.
Put the butter, sugar, almonds, corn syrup and water into a sauce pan.
Turn the heat on high and begin stirring. This is the only "hard" part, you have to stir it constantly. I timed it and it takes roughly 15 minutes on my stove before the toffee is ready. The next few pictures will show the changes in color and texture that the toffee goes through until it is ready.
Since it is somewhat difficult to gauge the color when you are staring at it the whole time, the trick I was taught was to look at the color in the bottom of the pan as your spoon scrapes it. When it starts to turn a a golden caramel color, it is time to pull it off. When you pull it off the stove it will continue cooking so if you wait until the whole batch is that color, you will have burned toffee.
Continue stirring as you take the pan off the stove and quickly pour the toffee onto the wax paper, spreading it out to the edges as quickly as possible because it hardens rapidly.
To give you an idea of what I mean about it continuing to cook, the time lapse between the last cooking picture and the picture when I am spreading it on the wax paper is 44 seconds. This shot of the pan also shows it continuing to cook.
Unwrap 3 Hershey bars and lay them on top of the toffee.
Wait a minute or two for the chocolate to melt and then spread it around.
Lift the wax paper out of the pan and I always lay it on a towel to keep my counters from getting damaged since it is so hot.
Now for the other hard part...waiting for it to cool. The toffee itself cools off rather quickly. The chocolate on the other hand, it takes roughly 24 hours to harden back up. Don't try to speed the time up by putting it in the refrigerator because all it will do is create white spots all over the chocolate. It won't change the flavor but it does look unappealing. Once your chocolate is finally hardened back up, it is ready! You can tell the chocolate is hardened because the gloss will be gone and also, it won't leave a fingerprint if you push on it.
Simply break your toffee into bite sized pieces and store in your preferred method. Makes great gifts and I always have it for my Christmas parties and New Years parties too!
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| This is NOT 16 batches, this is only 4 batches |
A few tips for the toffee making novice.
* DON'T GIVE UP!! It is highly unlikely that you will make a perfect batch of toffee right out of the gate each and every time. Some you will pull to soon, some you will pull to late, don't worry about it! Unless you wait for the entire batch to be black before pulling, it will probably be edible.
*CLEAN QUICKLY! While you are waiting for the chocolate to melt, go fill your pan up with hot water and let it sit in the sink. The toffee will dissolve in the water. If you wait to clean your pan, I hope you have a powerful sander to remove the dried and fully hardened toffee!
*DON'T JUDGE THE CHOCOLATE BY LOOKS ALONE! A mistake I made for many years. "Hey, that chocolate looks ready, I can break it up now." Only to find that almost every piece of toffee has my fingerprint imprinted in the chocolate. Again, not appealing when giving it to others.
*DON'T WAIT TO LONG TO REMOVE FROM WAX PAPER! Again, ask me how I know! If you wait to long, the wax paper will mysteriously meld into your toffee and then you are left attempting to peel small pieces of wax paper off the back of every single piece of toffee which, incidentally, is not as fun you might think it is.
*HAVE FUN! There is nothing like seeing the joy on others faces when they eat some of your homemade candy.
***Texas Gem is not responsible for any expanding waistlines that come from following this recipe***
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