Vintage Dough: English Toffee

This is my grandmother's toffee. I remember a few years ago being horrified at a good friend's great aunt refusing my toffee. That had never happened before. I was absolutely appalled. Fortunately, her niece and rest of the family stepped in exclaiming the fabulousness of my toffee and crisis was averted. I believe she took the rest of my toffee with her. :) Not so long ago I discovered why she had refused my toffee. There is a recipe going around that involves saltines, microwaving, and chocolate. I have tasted this toffee (as apparently had the great aunt) and to me it's gawdawful. As my Aunt Sue says, once you have the real thing you never go back.

Now I understand that like many things, making candy requires time and patience; of which, both are in short supply these days. Making toffee is not terribly difficult, once you get the hang of it. Making toffee has even gotten easier over the years. We have always made it with Land of Lakes salted butter, McCormick's vanilla, and Hershey's Milk Chocolate. - I tell you this because this is the way we do it, this is the taste I know and remember. You are welcome to make it however you wish. - The Hershey's used to only come in bars and Kisses. It is a PAIN (and much cussing is involved) in shaving a bar (one must shave with a sharp knife and not melt the chocolate in the process of shaving) or chopping down Kisses (you'd be amazed at how hard those suckers are) to the appropriate size for melting. You can find (with some searching, it took me 5 stores this year) Hershey's milk chocolate bits/morsels, which work exceptionally well.

I believe I learned to cuss over the English Toffee recipe (just kidding Mom). I distinctly remember (with a smile and a laugh) the many Christmases of making toffee with Mom, various aunts, and Grandma. It often appears to be a 3-ring circus. We'd start making the toffee, but no one would've gotten the walnuts chopped, which the toffee goes over. Someone would have to chop them down and get enough of them spread correctly (thin layer, all parts of the pan covered) on the pan. The walnuts were first chopped with a knife, then a nut grinder, someone tried a food processor (pulsing is best of you go that method, you don't want to end up with "flour"), I use a "quikchop chopper".

Toffee takes about 20 to 30 minutes on the stove, so you can imagine the rush in the earlier methods. I was a kid and will always remember my mother and grandmother's "Stir! Stir! Keep stirring!! Whatever you do DON'T STOP!" while they rushed to do something else. I recommend a heavy bottom skillet/pot, non-stick or stainless steel doesn't really matter (be warned that on a non-stick it will slide out onto the nuts in a great rush). I also recommend a candy thermometer. I got mine at Wally World for about $2, it's not fancy, but it is short enough to go on pan/pot so I don't have to hold it and it's not so tall as to fall off the side of said pan/pot b/c there's not enough "side" to anchor it to. You could I suppose grow a 3rd arm to hold on to the pot should you be so inclined.

The idea is to reach "hard crack stage", which is just above 300F, on the candy thermometer. To test that you've reached the hard crack stage, you take a little bit of candy and toss it in cold water, you should be able to hear it crackle and it will instantly turn hard. You can also tell by color once you've done it enough, but I'm a fan of going with all three methods b/c it's a real shame to screw up toffee, not to mention it looks, smells and tastes bad (if you get it too hot). Once you burn sugar let it go and start over. If it's not hot enough, it won't set right and is just a big messy disappointment. Yes, we've all experienced both.

So without further adieu, English Toffee making in pictures: