Our Christmas Toffee

Happy New Year! I thought I would start this year off with a bang on the blog! It may be late in the season to be posting this but it has been a recipe we’ve used in our family ever since I was little and I thought it would be a great way to start the year. Plus it will be up for you to save and pin to use in the years to come! Our one and only Toffee recipe is a Chocolate Almond Toffee.. I will say it is a little hard to make, I’ve warned you! Just know that if you do decide to make this, you can’t have any distractions and need to be paying very close attention when making this Toffee! Pro tip: You will need a really good candy thermometer for this (here’s our fav) Yield: 5-7 servings

Total Time: 5 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients:

❒ 1 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
❒ 2 sticks salted butter
❒ 3 tbsp water
❒ 1 tbsp light corn syrup (We use the Karo Light Corn Syrup which you can get at just the regular ole grocery store but if you need a reference or love Amazon like me, I’ll link it for you right here)
❒ 1 tsp real vanilla extract
❒ 2 cups (12oz) Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
❒ 1 cup unbleached (natural/raw) almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped

Directions:
1. About an hour before you are ready to start making your toffee, you’ll want to toast and chop your almonds.. Preheat the oven to 325℉. Put your almonds on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for 10-20 minutes, checking them every 5 minutes to flip until lightly toasted in the center. You will need to cut one open at about 15 minutes to check the center. Every oven will vary on the time for this part so make sure to keep checking and flipping every 5 minutes!
2. Lightly grease a 9×13 flexible teflon cookie sheet (best type of cookie sheet for easily popping the toffee out)
3. In a medium heavy duty saucepan, bring sugar, butter, water and corn syrup to a boil over medium heat (do not mix just put ingredients into pan) and boil without stirring until candy thermometer registers 300-310℉.
This is the first part where you cannot take your eyes off the saucepan or you will indeed burn the toffee mixture and have to start over!
4. Turn off heat and stir in vanilla immediately (a quick stir)
5. Pour immediately into lightly greased cookie sheet and set a timer for 2 minutes. Sprinkle evenly with chocolate chips and then set your timer for another 2 minutes. Once the chocolate chips are shiny, spread nice and evenly across the toffee.
Pro tip: We use one of the stainless steel icing spatulas. The best kind to get for your yearly toffee making is an angled stainless steel spatula because it is the perfect tool, size and shape for spreading your melted chocolate chips. I’ll link the kind I am talking about which you can get on Amazon right here!
6. Sprinkle evenly with your toasted and coarsely chopped almonds that you’ve set aside and gently press into chocolate. Let toffee sit out and come to room temperature.
7. Refrigerate until cold (usually a few hours) and then pop your toffee out of the cookie sheet very carefully. Use a knife to cut into generous sized pieces and then you will be ready to divide up or serve!

Toffee Tips:
☞ If you find that the toffee is separating from the chocolate when cutting it into pieces and you are making multiple batches, cut the rest of the first batch and move on! You can pop your cookie sheet into the refrigerator overnight instead of just a few hours the second time around before popping it out of the cookie sheet to cut!
☞ While your toffee mixture is coming to temperature, it’s a good idea to get your vanilla measured out and sitting next to the stove with whichever utensil you will be using to stir in the vanilla. Once the toffee mixture is right in the middle of 300-310℉ the vanilla needs to happen quick so it is best to have it ready to go!!
☞ The goldish 12oz bags of Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips you pick up at the grocery store measure out to be exactly two cups so one bag is the exact amount for a batch of toffee – per my Mama!
☞ Toffee 101 – You may not know that your candy thermometer cannot touch the bottom of your saucepan
☞ If you live in a warmer climate like we do here in Texas, we’ve found it best to keep the toffee in the refrigerator to keep the chocolate firm and from melting! When my Mom first started making this when I was young, she would always make I’d say around 3-5 batches every single year. Some would be for the house and for family around the holidays but she would also make extra for all of my teachers. She’d package them all cute in Christmas metal tins, small little paper takeout boxes with handles or cellophane with twist ties. Something they very much appreciated so if your a mama, feel free to steal my Moms idea! Still to this day, she makes batches on batches of this toffee every year but instead of extra for my teachers since I am well out of school, she makes a ton of extra for her neighborhood Christmas parties and friends. This year she ended up doing a total of 7 batches 🤣🤣 Have a great New Years Day y’all!


XO
Lauren