Chewy Toffee was close at the top of my list of sweets to make, although sadly creating it did not go quite as smoothly as I'd imagined. It was in making this recipe for the first time that I realised quite how important a heavy based pan is when boiling sugar - it took me several attempts, a few different recipes and involved a trip to the bin.
One of the things I love most about making sweets, and this is a strange one, is the research and experimenting involved when my first attempt doesn't quite go to plan, the scribbled notes all leading me towards the perfect combinations. With toffee I leaped in two feet first, hoping for the best. Now as previously mentioned this first attempt didn't go well, it was edible, it just wasn't toffee and it wasn't very nice, I had created a sort fudge/ toffee/ caramel high bred which had no chew to it whatsoever and so sadly into the bin it had to go. It was back to the recipe books, researching how to get the perfect toffee chewy-ness!! These are my top toffee making tips I discovered:
- If you want a chewy toffee cook the syrup to a temperature of between 245-275F
-If its firmer toffee's you desire cook to 320F
-Using a variety of sugars creates a more intense caramel flavour
-Do not leave the toffee's to set completely before cutting - or it's a super tricky task
-No matter how tempted you are DON'T stir the mixture when cooking
-Corn syrup = Golden syrup
Although I used a combination of recipes, my favourite one can be found here.
Ingredients:
-200ml cream (I used whipping but you can use others; single, double etc)
-165g Caster Sugar
-165g Soft Brown Sugar
-75g Unsalted Butter
-3 large Table Spoons of Golden Syrup
-1/4 Teaspoon Salt
-Vanilla Essence
Before you start cooking, like with any recipe prepare your baking tray, line trays with parchment paper ready to pour the toffee into.
Firstly add the caster sugar and 30ml of water into your heavy based pan, melt until golden brown. Then take it off the heat and add your cream, butter, salt, brown sugar and golden syrup - place back onto boil, add your themometre to the side of then pan to keep a close eye on the toffee's rising temperature. DO NOT STIR. You don't want to cook the toffee on a super high heat or the sugar will burn, so keep it on a low-medium temperature, adjusting if you feel it's too high or might start to burn. Be patient.
Continue cooking the mixture until you reach your desired boiling point, this will vary depending upon the texture of toffees you want. I cooked mine to 245/250F and these created a chewy toffee with a lovely texture. Then take off the heat and add in your vanilla essence.
Pour the mixture into the prepared trays and leave to set. At this point it you wanted to add nuts of berries to your toffee's you can push them into the mixture while it's still soft and gooey, I left mine plain.
Don't leave your mixture to set completely or it'll be prove to be too hard to cut into pieces, but at the same time you don't want it to be too gooey to cut either. This really is a trial and error process, so you might want to test cutting the toffee every so often.
You can then wrap you toffee in parchment paper, creating individual sweets, and there we have it lovely chewy toffee.
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