Best Toffee Ever Recipe | Mean Green Chef | A Cure for the Tired Palate (2024)

FAQs

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.

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.

English toffee is the epitome of classic toffee. It's rich and buttery, with a firm snap and a crisp texture that doesn't stick to your teeth. Of course, it's delicious on its own, but it really shines when it's paired with a thick coating of dark chocolate and a sprinkling of nuts.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Rub the cube of butter around the sides of the pan before adding sugar. This will help keep sugar crystals from clinging to the sides. When adding the sugar, place it in the center of the pan to keep sugar crystals off the pan sides. During cooking, occasionally wash the sides of the pan with a brush dipped in water.

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 .

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.

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).

Toffee is a dentist's worst nightmare. It is sugary, sticky and hard. Because of this texture, many patients have cracked, chipped and broken their teeth whilst biting into toffee. It can even destroy existing dental work like fillings, veneers and crowns.

You need a very sturdy pan which is KEY to even heat distribution. Thinner, cheaper pans can scorch the cooking candy and/or cook it unevenly. Here are some great choices: Anolon Nouvelle Copper and Cooks Standard. I own a couple pricier copper pots because of the amount of candy I make.

Made with just sugar and a little water, toffee is easy to make and is an easy introduction to the world of confectionary. This recipe includes a dash of vinegar which will help keep the colour of the toffee clear and bright and banish any cloudiness.

There are a number of possibly reasons. Certain ingredients like corn syrup can make it sticky. Not cooking the candy all the way to hard crack stage can make it more sticky. High humidity in the air can make it sticky.

In addition to making the final product a darker shade of brown, the larger dose of molasses also enhances its rich flavor. Dark brown sugar is generally called for in recipes that have a pronounced caramel flavor, such as Brown-Sugar-and-Bacon-Glazed Brussels Sprouts and Milk Tart with Brown Sugar Crust.

While light and dark brown sugar are interchangeable, they're not exact substitutes. Using dark brown sugar when a recipe calls for light will give your final product a more robust taste and a darker color, and it might slightly affect the texture.

Can you substitute dark brown sugar for light brown sugar? In general, yes, the sugars are interchangeable in most recipes. Especially in most standard baking recipes that call for a mix of sugars like cookies and/or when brown sugar isn't the star ingredient for flavor, you can use one versus the other.

Dark brown sugar has a very strong molasses flavor, while light brown sugar is a little drier and has a much milder flavor. ... A darker brown sugar brings that slightly bitter molasses note to gingerbread and can add depth of flavor to chocolate cake.