Toffee | CraftyBaking | Formerly Baking911 (2024)

FAQs

What temperature should toffee be cooked to? ›

What Is Toffee? Toffee is a candy made by caramelizing sugar with butter. The mixture is heated until it reaches the hard crack stage (at least 300 degrees F), hardened, then broken into pieces.

Toffee gets chewy when there is too much moisture in it. Undercooking toffee can leave it moist and chewy, while recipes that include a lot of dairy also make chewy toffee. Humidity can influence toffee-making and cause stored toffees to soften and get sticky.

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!

Stir only occasionally (not constantly) and avoid scraping down the sides of the pan. 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.

The toffee continues to change color and becomes darker as the temperature rises. If toffee cooks to too high a temperature and the toffee is dark in color, unfortunately, there is no way to save this batch of toffee. Ways to prevent this from happening include: If you use a Candy Thermometer test it for accuracy.

For better crunch, add baking soda

The base soda is reacting with the acid sugar, plus heat, to make tons of tiny bubbles. Those bubbles remain trapped in the syrup as it cools in the pan, yielding toffee whose consistency is lightly crunchy rather than hard: think light-textured American-style biscotti vs.

Adding cream of tartar when you're making candy helps prevent the creation of sugar crystals. That's why lots of icing, syrup or candy recipes call for it: it makes it so the end product doesn't have large crunchy sugar capsules.

Toffee is a hard candy that combines the classic cooked sugar sweetness of caramel with the richness of butter. Technically, toffee is butterscotch—a combination of butter and sugar—cooked to what's known as the hard-crack stage in confectionery: over 300 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer.

Taste is obvious: sweets made with dark brown sugar will have a slightly deeper flavor with those notes of caramel and toffee I mentioned. That's why I only use dark brown sugar when making gingerbread; but depending on the recipe, you may not even notice a difference.

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 .

Why add water to toffee? ›

Boiling the butter and water will dissolve the sugar crystals very quickly. This will keep the batch from recrystallizing during the cooking process. Toffee Maker's Secret #4: Very important!

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.

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.

Crystallization occurs when you heat the mixture too quickly. The sugar crystallizes on the side of the pot and gets mixed back into the Toffee. That's what creates a grainy texture. To prevent crystallization, take care to completely dissolve all the sugar before you bring the mixture to a boil.

Tips for Making Toffee

Use salted butter. Salt seems to stabilize the mixture. If you use unsalted butter, add ¼ teaspoon of salt per stick of butter in the recipe.

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.

What's the difference between English and American toffee? The main difference is that traditional English toffee is created without nuts, while American toffee is created with a variety of nuts. The most common nuts being the almond.

If your toffee separates, there still is hope! Remove it from the heat and stir constantly until the mixture comes back together, and then gradually return it to the heat while continuing to stir. You can also add a tablespoon or two of very hot water and whisk it into the toffee to try to get it back together.

For best results, substitute an equal amount of lemon juice for the cream of tartar in your recipe. In recipes in which cream of tartar is used to stabilize egg whites or prevent crystallization, use an equal amount of lemon juice instead.

Larger amounts of butter or cream can make chewier, softer toffees that are like caramels, while toffee cooked to a higher temperature becomes brittle but is still chewy to eat. The Maillard reaction, which is caused by heating the dairy and sugar together, is what gives toffee its toasty flavour.

What does glucose syrup do to toffee? ›

Adding glucose to sugar and water when heating to high temperatures helps to stop the sugar from recrystallizing upon cooling. Without it, you may end up with a grainy, hard batch of fudge.

Toffee, nut brittles, and lollipops are all cooked to the hard-crack stage. If you heat a sugar syrup to temperatures higher than any of the candy stages, you will be on your way to creating caramelized sugar (the brown liquid stage)—a rich addition to many desserts. At this temperature all the water has boiled away.

Finally, if the candy forms hard, brittle strands that easily break, the candy is at the hard crack stage, between 300° — 310°F. Butter toffee and peanut brittle are examples of candies cooked to this temperature.

Lecithin lowers the surface tension of the cocoa butter and reduces its resistance to spread. Lecithin's functionality in caramels, toffees, brittles is that of an emulsifier, preventing the fats from separating producing a more tender, richer finished product.

How Long Does it Last? This toffee candy is good for at least two weeks if stored at room temperature. If your home is a bit on the warm side or if you're holding onto it for gift-giving, I would store it in the fridge. It should last for a couple more weeks if you stick in the refrigerator!

If you do not boil the toffee mixture on a high enough heat setting, it will not set. The recommended temperature for boiling toffee is around 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The secret to perfectly set toffee is how long you boil it and the temperature you heat it to.

Place the pot with the sugar and water mixture on the stovetop. Turn the burner on to low heat to ensure your sugar won't burn or turn to caramel syrup. Using a wooden spoon, continuously stir the sugar in the pot, breaking up any clumps and making sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan until the sugar melts.

You can use white sugar or brown sugar, but preferred the slight difference in brown sugar. Water. Adding water helps the sugar crystals melt quickly so that your toffee is the right texture. Corn syrup.

It is possible to overmix the butter and sugar. If you overmix, however, the butter will separate out of the mixture and it will be grainy and soupy, so be sure to stop once your butter becomes light and fluffy.

When your butter-sugar mixture looks pale yellow in color and fluffy, stop mixing. If mixed past this point, the butter begins to melt. It will look oily and liquidy, with a grainy texture, or may look white like whipped cream. This means it's been overmixed and cannot be used in your recipe.

Why did my toffee turn out like fudge? ›

Fudge usually behaves this way when it's not cooked to a high enough temperature (due to oversight or a faulty candy thermometer).

To make a perfect easy caramel every-time, simply add one or two drops of vinegar and just enough water to wet the sugar.

When you cook, unlike when you bake, you can taste as you go – and in fact many savory recipes instruct you to “add salt to taste.” Thus if a recipe calls for unsalted butter, but you add salted instead, you will be able to taste the dish's saltiness and then add as little, or as much, extra salt as you would like.

Toffee is made from sugar and butter. Chefs cook toffee longer than caramel so it reaches a hardened, brittle state. (Check out Aunt Rose's Fantastic Butter Toffee for a tasty example.) The candy is usually topped with chocolate, nuts or coconut—and gobbled up instantly.

Toffee, nut brittles, and lollipops are all cooked to the hard-crack stage. If you heat a sugar syrup to temperatures higher than any of the candy stages, you will be on your way to creating caramelized sugar (the brown liquid stage)—a rich addition to many desserts.

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.

Place the toffee mixture into a large pot and add one and a half cups of water to the pot. Stir the toffee over low heat until it dissolves. This may dilute the flavor, but taste the mixture and add what you feel is missing. Increase the heat, and bring the toffee mixture to a boil.

ENGLISH VS AMERICAN TOFFEE

In America we call most toffee, English Toffee. What's the difference between English and American toffee? The main difference is that traditional English toffee is created without nuts, while American toffee is created with a variety of nuts. The most common nuts being the almond.

Adding cream of tartar when you're making candy helps prevent the creation of sugar crystals. That's why lots of icing, syrup or candy recipes call for it: it makes it so the end product doesn't have large crunchy sugar capsules.

Crystallization occurs when you heat the mixture too quickly. The sugar crystallizes on the side of the pot and gets mixed back into the Toffee. That's what creates a grainy texture. To prevent crystallization, take care to completely dissolve all the sugar before you bring the mixture to a boil.

Why did my butter and sugar separate making toffee? ›

If the heat is too high, but butter might melt too quickly and can separate from the sugar. Toffee and caramel can also separate if the recipe calls for constant stirring and the candy isn't stirred often enough.

Toffee is a hard candy that combines the classic cooked sugar sweetness of caramel with the richness of butter. Technically, toffee is butterscotch—a combination of butter and sugar—cooked to what's known as the hard-crack stage in confectionery: over 300 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer.

Toffee tends to be hard and crunchy, while caramel is soft and chewy. Toffee is used for brittle, while caramel is used more for candies or sauces.

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.

Tips for Making Toffee

Use salted butter. Salt seems to stabilize the mixture. If you use unsalted butter, add ¼ teaspoon of salt per stick of butter in the recipe. Melt the butter over medium heat and keep the temperature under the pot constant so the candy mixture is heated gradually.

So, the short answer is yes; you can remelt toffee as many times as you want according to your cooking needs.