Homemade Toffee Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What can go wrong when making toffee? ›

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.

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.

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.

If your toffee doesn't have a hard texture (where you can snap it in half) you did not cook it long enough. Again, the 5-minutes is just a guide. Cook it until it is the color of a brown bag.

If the two elements melt unevenly it can result in separation. If you have good stovetop burners, we recommend turning them to medium-low to allow the butter and sugar to melt gently in the beginning stages. If the heat is too high, but butter might melt too quickly and can separate from the sugar.

We would suggest using a heavy-based pan and heating the mixture slowly, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has completely dissolved, then letting it come gradually to a boil. Remove from the heat and let it stand at room temperature to cool down.

But overcooked toffee will be just slightly crunchier (almost unrecognizably). So, always err on the side of over-cooking! Tip 2 explains how to do so! In order to avoid your chocolate turning white, you'll want to let it set in a room temperature spot without exposure to any drafts.

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 .

For the Cold Water Test: 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the syrup (candy mixture) is dropped from a clean spoon into a small bowl of very cold water (not ice cold). Quickly examine and/or carefully pick up the sugar from the cold water. The firmness of the sugar indicates the highest temperature the syrup reached.

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.

Why is my toffee not set and why is it's texture grainy and not smooth? ›

As the toffee cools and the molten sugar crystals become solid again, they are attracted to the 'seed' forming new lumps of tiny crystals – hence the grainy texture. This can also happen if the toffee is stirred, or agitated, after it has begun to boil or on cooling (as happened with this pink-tinted toffee).

300° F–310° F

The hard-crack stage is the highest temperature you are likely to see specified in a candy recipe. At these temperatures, there is almost no water left in the syrup. Drop a little of the molten syrup in cold water and it will form hard, brittle threads that break when bent.

This should NOT be a non-stick pan, because non-stick pans allow crystals to be pulled into the cooking toffee and will cause the batch to crystallize. The heavy pan distributes heavy evenly so the toffee cooks without burning.

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.

Make sure that the point of the candy thermometer is not touching the bottom of your pan. Continue to stir occasionally, the mixture will slowly thicken and will turn a more yellow hue as it cooks, and cook to hard crack (305°F/151°C).

Notes. If the toffee mixture has not boiled for long enough the toffees will not set. It is very important that you test toffee in a glass of cold water for it to crack or that the toffee has become hard on the spoon.

If you get impatient while waiting for the mixture to boil and turn the heat to high, you can “shock” your toffee, causing separation. Solution: Don't turn the heat past medium at any stage of the toffee-making process. Keep the heat constant. It will boil; just be patient.

A psychologist might just chalk it up to "separation anxiety." Some candy experts theorize that it's due to an abrupt temperature shift, or from not stirring the mixture enough during cooking, or from using a too-thin saucepan that doesn't conduct heat evenly, or too much humidity in your kitchen.

Undercooked toffee won't be anything more than a caramel sauce. But overcooked toffee will be just slightly crunchier (almost unrecognizably).