Homemade English Toffee Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What's the difference between toffee and English toffee? ›

Americanized toffee may include nuts, while a completely traditional British toffee will not. On the other hand, English toffee uses pure cane sugar, brown sugar, or molasses as its sweet base and always involves chocolate.

In fact, if you want to get technical about it, toffee is just butterscotch that hardens when cooked to a higher temperature (as opposed to softer butterscotch that is heated to a lower, more pourable consistency). When toffee is topped with chocolate and nuts, it is often referred to as English Toffee.

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. It can also be caused by the mixture being heated unevenly (if the pan has a thin base and has hot spots).

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.

Toffee vs Butterscotch

While butterscotch is cooked to a soft-crack stage, toffee is produced by allowing that same butter and brown sugar mixture to reach the hard-crack stage. Butterscotch tends to be chewy and pliable; toffee is brittle and more breakable.

As toffee is hard crack, it has a more brittle texture. Fudge, on the other hand, is softball – making it soft and crumbly. The difference between caramel and toffee is greater, as caramel has a more liquid consistency and is usually pure sugar (it doesn't contain butter or flour).

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.

Store homemade toffee in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week or in the fridge for up to two weeks.

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.

Mel's Dumbed Down Version: patience, moderate heat and heavy-bottoms (see saucepan note above) make the best toffee. What is this? It's important while the toffee cooks to only stir it occasionally. Constant stirring can cause the toffee to crystallize and separate.

What can go wrong when making toffee? ›

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.

Here's how you know when the toffee is ready. Keep one of the almonds near the pan. It's your color cue. When the toffee is the color of the almond skin, it's done!

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!

Long slow boils cause more sugar inversion, inverted sugar is hygroscopic (attracts water) and will make your candy sticky.

Toffee nut is much more, well, nutty! Whereas, English toffee has a more buttery and smooth flavor.

English Toffee flavor has a smooth caramel flavor without the creaminess.

There is something wonderful about the absolutely shattering crunch of toffee. The high-volume bite alone is enough to keep you snacking on a bowl of this confection, but when it's combined with buttery, caramelly flavor with just a tinge of salt and bitterness it becomes positively irresistible.