In honor of National English Toffee Day I am sharing my grandmother’s recipe for English Toffee!
Alice Belle’s World’s Best English Toffee Recipe
2 sticks of butter
1 1/3 cups white sugar
3 Tablespoons water
1/2 Cup nuts (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 – 1 1/2 Cups chocolate chips (milk chocolate is best but semi-sweet is good also)
First, prepare a pan lined with buttered aluminum foil. I use a jelly roll pan.
Melt butter in a saucepan and add 1 1/3 cups sugar and 3 Tablespoons water and stir well.
Over medium high heat cook, stirring frequently, until it reaches 300
degrees. If the candy appears to separate (with a layer of melted
butter on top) stir vigorously to make it come back together again.
Watch CLOSELY at 285 degrees, since it cooks quickly and will
scorch at high temperatures.
To show you how quickly it cooks, at 285 degrees I was going to take a picture of it at precisely 300 degrees, but it went too quickly. It can usually go to 310 but any hotter and it will scorch!
At 300 degrees remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Stir in nuts if using (or you can sprinkle on top of chocolate).
Carefully pour toffee into prepared pan smoothing to desired thickness and let set about a minute. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top.
Wait about three minutes until chocolate chips are soft and melted from the heat of the toffee. Smooth chocolate across the top of the toffee.
Place in refrigerator until hard. Peel aluminum foil from back of toffee and break into pieces!
Happy National English Toffee Day!
Hi Wendy, You might check your candy thermometer. Being off even a few degrees can greatly effect the toffee.
Hi, I made this recipe this morning and it turned out nothing like my friends. Her’s was more white and soft. My turned the color of coffee with some milk in it and when it cooled it was much harder. What did I do wrong?
I agree. This was terrible! I’m mostly angry about the time and money I spent so I could throw it away. I’ll find a different recipe.
Hi Cheryl, I am working on it!
Why is there no way to send this receipe to my email as i dont have a computer at this time and have to go to library to print anything so i need to be able to send to my email. You dont give this option
I believe my pan is about 11″X15″ cookie sheet with sides. It doesn’t matter too much…mostly depends on how thick you want your toffee.
I would love to try and make this, but does anyone know what size pan to use?
Im so glad you mentioned it separating, my grandmother has long ago passed and i couldn’t find anyone that new what to do my grandmother also added cream of tartar quarter teaspoon per batch, I can’t wait to leave work to go try it again thank you
so I stirred briskly the entire time and when it reached 300 it separated and despite brisk beating stayed separated and bubbled and fizzed when I added vanilla and is grainy and awful looking. What did I do wrong??! Not easy at all
Thanks for the Memory. She made the best Christmas array. Took a panfFul of goodies to the employees of the Local grocery store and many others.
How much butter do you use in this recipe?
I just made this it is cooling now but I think it may be ruined it got very grainy so I dont know if it is normal or a total fail please help
Fyi, don’t use a plastic spoon it will melt. Let’s try again. Lol
Thanks! This is a great recipe…making it for Christmas gifts & I know it’ll be a big hit!
When I made this recipe, everything went fine except I couldn’t get it out of the pan. However, Ididn’t line it with foil, I just buttered the pan. Did I make it too thin? Help. I ended up throwing it all away .
Thank you for any tips . I tasted it and it was goodl