English Toffee Recipe (2024)

I've been making English Toffee for Christmas presents since 1976. I always heat to 310 degrees. I only use sugar and butter and water. A good tip is to spray your pan before adding sugar, butter and water. This step really helps in the clean up. I make mine with pecans; adding once the temperature is reached; pour out onto cookie sheet to cool. Then melt chocolate to pour on top and sprinkle with chopped pecans. When that's cooled, break into pieces. El yum-o-rama!

Try substituting bourbon for the water - it is tremendous. I also use the tiny semi-sweet chips (Guittard is my go-to) rather than mess with grating the chocolate. I make a LOT of this every Christmas so need the added efficiency!

Parchment on the sheet pan will make life much easier

It's an 11x15 pan, like a jelly roll pan.

Love this and have made it for decades. A huge project -- takes hours, but well worth it. Experts can go without the corn syrup (add extra sugar instead), but using it makes things easier. Can use chopped pecans or ground blanched almonds instead of walnuts. Save pretty glass jars with lids all year: recover lids with nice wrapping paper and wrap the filled jar with a ribbon bow around the lid to make a lovely holiday gift. Candy keeps well at room temperature -- can make ahead.

My first time making toffee, with a history of unsuccessful candy making. If you're a novice candy maker, note that it takes TIME to get to the right temperature. I was worried my candy thermometer was broken. But I could smell it and watched for changes in the sugar mixture to guide me along. And when it smelled like toffee, I knew I was doing it right. Overall, it was a solid hour for mine to get to temp.

Definitely go to 310 degrees, the suggested 285 is not hot enough and the toffee will come out soft. My mom taught me a great trick, keep a raw almond next to you while you’re making the toffee on the stove. When the color of the toffee reaches the color of the raw almond (you can test by dropping a bit on a white plate) you’re probably very close to temperature.

I'm curious - why 3/4 of the pan? Why not a smaller pan?

I make a lot of peanut brittle. When adding the nuts the thermometer never stays in place. Bought myself a spatula thermometer and it works great. Come with both C & F. Digital easy to read. Siliko Mart

In a commercial kitchen the answer is 18"x13"

use bourbon instead of water. parchment paper.

What are dimensions of a half sheet baking pan?

Sounds to me to be very like what we British would call a Florentine. And of course in Britain a candy is something quite different.

What temperature should be reached at 9000 feet where I live?

Instead of grating the chocolate, I just coarsely chop it. Also, not sure why the recommendation is for Lindt or Tobler chocolate. I used semisweet (62%) Guittard, which is a chocolate that I really like and can easily get. I had to raise the heat from medium to medium high to speed up the caramelization process, and it took about 2 hours to get to 280F.

Line your baking sheet with foil or parchment.

The best.

I use a recipe that my mother started using in the 1970s. One cup of butter, one cup of brown sugar, melt butter add brown sugar, stir constantly 8 to 12 minutes until color light or 280°. Pour into a 9 inch cake pan that has a half a cup of finally chopped nuts on the Bottom. When cooled very slightly, poor semi sweet chocolate chips on the surface, spread it around and sprinkle on the rest of the chop nuts. Absolutely delicious and total time is under half an hour.

This is a great recipe. This year I made three batches of this toffee for holiday gifts. The first batch was as written and it was very good. The second batch was made with vegan butter (Mioyoko’s brand) it was the best of the three and the third I added 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, as some commenters suggested and I regretted it. It just didn’t taste right to me.

Followed the advice of other posters to cook to 305. It then raised to 310 after fire was off and before I got it poured into the pan. Worked great! Lined the pan with parchment to ease the release. For the chocolate, trying to use the grater on my food processer was terrible. Instead, I shopped the chocolate coarsely and pulsed with regular chopping blade until coarse crumbs. Worked just fine

I cooked to about 310 F and it turned out absolutely delicious! I used semi sweet chocolate chips and chopped pecans on the top only.Not difficult if you use a good candy thermometer. This one's a keeper!

Oh, my. This gave me trouble (but turned out well). (1) Don't grate the chocolate! Use a food processor or choc chips. (2) Got everything into a medium pan and then had to transfer because it doubled in size! (3) Realized my candy thermometer lost its clip, so had to spot check and hold it. Which is why (4) It went from 260 degrees to 290 (oops!) in about a minute, after ~30 min of constant stirring! (5) Which explains the slightly "darker" flavor, I guess. Still good. But probably not a repeat.

I have been making this toffee for years. I’ve made it to the letter and then with various changes. Sometimes I use sliced almonds instead of walnuts. This year was my favorite version - just a few chopped walnuts on the top and bottom and none in the actual toffee. I take the caramel to a toffee-like color, not sure of the temp but definitely over 300. Finally use bittersweet chocolate! Semisweet makes the whole thing too sweet. Oh! And a good pinch of salt in with the caramel!

Like Shauna, I have been making a streamlined version of this using whole almonds in the toffee itself and pouring the toffee directly into the 1/2 sheet pan. No candy thermometer, so I go by color and texture - approx 50 minutes. Tip the pan to spread the toffee to the edges of the pan. Sprinkle chocolate, spread, top with chopped walnuts. I don't use either water or corn syrup in my version so my question is about the water - what does it do for the recipe?

This is my go-to homemade gift for friends and neighbors, but I've learned to streamline the process over the years. I pour the toffee (nut free) onto the pan. Spread it into a thin layer and immediately sprinkle on the unmelted chocolate (I use good chips). Once the chocolate is melted (it will only take a few minutes), spread it evenly over the toffee and then sprinkle on the nuts. The nuts will stick to the chocolate and look beautiful.

Made at high altitude, 7220 feet. For me, making a successful batch was a combo of what others said like going off sight and smell (almond nut color and brown butter nutty smell); using bourbon instead of water; and pulling off when temp reaches 300-305 F. Used almonds, but forgot to add them at beginning so I lined the pan with slivered almonds and poured over them. Next time will add almonds at the beginning. Did minimal stirring. Was trying to copy Colorado-based Enstrom toffee.

1st attempt at making toffee ever: moderate success!-cut the sugar down by 1/2 cup-used regular old chocolate chips, melted and set fine.-only spread walnuts on the bottom of the sheet pan and poured the toffee mix over it. No chocolate on bottom and no walnuts in the mix/top. -tasted mine right after it hardened (before the chocolate set) and panicked because it was so hard it hurt my teeth, it was perfect by the next morning (still cracky but not like hard candy)-cooked quickly (med/high)

I’ve made this at Christmas the last two years and find it to be a great treat to add to the cookie tin to give away. The directions as written have worked well for me, though I ignore the part about 3/4 of the pan and simply fill a full rimmed at-home sheet pan (a half-sheet in commercial cooking). I would recommend a sturdy candy thermometer that can attach to the side of the pot so you don’t have to hold and stir at once.

Some commenters are saying this should be made in a smaller 11x15 pan because of the instructions to sprinkle the first layer of nuts on only 3/4 of the pan. I believe the recipe intends for you to use the whole area of your 13x18 sheet pan-- otherwise the toffee layer would be way too thick. The direction to spread the nuts on a smaller area is probably meant to account for the fact that when you spread the toffee over them, you'll naturally spread the nuts around too.

I've been using Black Walnuts in my baking for several years, not at all like the blander English Walnuts. Mostly grown in my home state of Missouri, they remind me so much of my grandmother's cookies. Black Walnuts have such an unusual and delicious flavor- they just seem to amp up the quality of anything- and I bet would be really good on this toffee.