English Toffee

Sources

• King Arthur Recipe
• Spruce Eats Recipe
• Cooking For Engineers Recipe and Discussion

Ingredients

• 300 g butter
• 400 g sugar
• 40 ml espresso
• 1 t honey, golden syrup, corn syrup, or glucose syrup
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t vanilla extract/paste

Method

• Butter the edges of a steel saucepan
• Add the butter, sugar, espresso, and honey to the saucepan.
• Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly with a whisk
• Boil gently over medium low heat until it reaches 295F (288F at 3600 ft), stirring constantly
• Remove from heat
• Add the baking soda (careful!) and vanilla, stir until incorporated
• Pour into pan/molds, let cool for at least one hour

Notes

The target temperature of 295F needs to be adjusted if at elevation, but 1 degree F per 500 feet of elevation. So for my location on Butte Rd, elevation 3620 ft, my target is 288F.

On my first attempt, the butter (Kerry Gold, high fat) split. I learned many things while researching this:

• When it splits, you can bring it back together by whisking vigorously, possibly adding 1-2T boiling water.
• Some theorize that “regular” butter, with less fat content isn’t prone to splitting
• Some suggest that high levels of humidity cause splitting. It was 41% humidity, 67F in my house on this rainy day.
• Some theories suppose that stirring too much, or not enough, can cause separation.
• Heating (or cooling) too quickly can cause separation
• Several sources indicated that separation is related to crystallization, which can be prevented by adding some invert sugar, glucose, or corn syrup.
• One way to prevent crystallization is to put a lid on until the mixture has begun to boil. The steam dissolves the sugar on the side of the pan which acts as a nexus for crystals to form. No stirring at all using this method.