Crunchy, chewy, and heavenly sweet, toffee is an English confection that is popular around the world. Read on to learn some amazing toffee recipes to try out this summer.

What is Toffee?

Toffee is a classic candy prepared by caramelizing brown sugar with butter until the mixture turns into an irresistible sweet delight. Although it seems like an ancient delicacy, toffee is rather a modern confection, having originated in the 19th century. While the exact origin story is unknown, toffee has been savored by the English for a long time, perhaps due to their abundant butter supplies. 

Today, toffee comes in a multitude of flavors and textures (melting soft, sticky, and hard). The more popular variety in America is English toffee or buttercrunch, containing a typical toffee base prepared from white sugar and butter, with a rich covering of chocolate, and almonds. Although called an English toffee, it’s far away from the classic British toffee, which doesn’t contain nuts and white sugar. No matter what it’s called, toffee is enjoyed by many people throughout the world.

How Toffee Is Made?

Image Credit: psaguer from Pixabay

Toffee is prepared by cooking brown sugar, butter, and salt at medium heat until the sugar and salt dissolve and the entire mixture takes on a golden hue. The cooking process might take up to 15 minutes; a more technical way is to cook the mixture until it reaches the hard crack stage of 310°F. The hot sugar syrup is then poured into a tray lined with greased paper and broken into bite-sized pieces once cooled to room temperature. 

Some toffee recipes use melted chocolate, roasted almonds, pecans, raisins, and chocolate chips for a rich chocolaty-nutty covering. 

Flavor of Toffee

Toffee is buttery and sugary with hints of salt giving off characteristic caramel vibes. However, some toffee might contain milk or cream without overlapping the typical caramel flavor. The texture is hard, chewy, and brittle at the same time. 

How to Cook With Toffee?

Luckily, besides devouring toffee as it is, you can prepare some heavenly desserts from toffee to satisfy your sweet tooth. Toffee ice cream and sticky toffee sundae are popular frozen desserts. However, sticky toffee pudding is a classic British dessert with a rich buttery-caramel flavor that’s simply out of this world. 

Besides these popular toffee recipes, toffee cheesecake, toffee crackers, toffee apple, and toffee pie are other divine toffee desserts. If you’re looking for some tasty toffee variations, do try saltine toffee, honeycomb toffee, and buttercrunch toffee. There are many ways to use toffee in the kitchen, but we like to eat it out of hand best. 

Feature Image: Stratford490 – Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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