Homemade English Toffee Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is 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 America, English toffee usually refers to a candy made with slow-cooked sugar and butter, forming a brittle, which is then coated in chocolate and nuts.

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).

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.

Ingredients: Toffee consists of sugar and butter, while caramel comprises sugar, water, and cream—or just sugar. Temperature: Confectioners cook toffee to the hard-crack stage, around 310 degrees Fahrenheit, resulting in its signature craggy shards.

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

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.

The English toffee eaten with regularity in America is also called buttercrunch. What's the difference? Primarily, the difference rests in the ingredients. Toffee in Britain is made with brown sugar, whereas buttercrunch is made with white granulated sugar.

Constant stirring can cause the toffee to crystallize and separate.

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.

Is light or dark brown sugar better for toffee? ›

Taste is obvious: sweets made with dark brown sugar will have a slightly deeper flavor with those notes of caramel and toffee I mentioned.

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 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.

Toffee Making Tips + Troubleshooting

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!

Toffee is butterscotch that has been cooked for a longer period of time. Toffee begins as a base of butter and brown sugar that is gradually cooked to the hard-crack sugar stage between 295 and 309 degrees Fahrenheit.

The name “English toffee” comes from the crunchy “toff” sound the candy makes when you bite into it. As the candy became popular, shops began selling it under the name “English toffee” or sometimes just “toffee.”

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 .