English Toffee

Hands down. This is my favorite English Toffee recipe ever. And my mother and aunt used to make an English Toffee recipe for years in an electric fry pan. I like this recipe a teensy weensy bit better than the electric fry pan version. I don't make it any more, can't keep it in the house because I end up eating it all. It doesn't help to freeze it, because I like it that way also. And of all the things that I hide from the family so they won't eat it in 30 seconds or less and then can't remember where I've put it, yeah, I know that I would remember where I hid the toffee. And to make it better or worse, depending on how you look at it, the year I made this to give as gifts my husband had bought a case of Dove candy bars at Costco. So that was the chocolate that I used on top of the toffee. oooooooooooooo........

English Toffee
from Kim P.

1 cup sugar
1 cup butter
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teasoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
chopped walnuts
Cadbury bar or Hershey bar


Stir in heavy pot over medium heat until mixture turns the color of a brown paper bag (aproximately ten minutes). Pour the mixture over chopped walnuts that have been layed out and patted onto a baking sheet. The mixture will not cover the entire baking sheet, just a big circle of it in the middle. Place milk chocolate squares on top while still hot, let them melt and then spread the chocolate evenly over the toffee. This can be put in the freezer at this point to speed up setting a enjoying. Caution: Do not attempt to double this recipe. It doesn't work.

NOTE: While the mixture is boiling, and this is where it gets a bit quirky, I go to my cabinet and pull out a brown paper bag to match up the mixture to the bag so that I get it right. I also prefer pecans to walnuts, so that is the kind of nut I usually use with this. Also, I stored this in the freezer after it was made and put in gift bags to hand out. One batch got funny white spots on the chocolate from doing this. I'm sure it was just a cocoa butter thing and not some deadly freezer virus. It was a shame, I had to eat it, couldn't hand it out looking like that. So store at room temperature, I would think, unless you're saving it for you and like it frozen. Room temperature in winter in Phoenix. Not room temperature in spring, summer or fall in Phoenix. If you live elsewhere, your room temp. is probably fine all year long. I'm rambling. This stuff is good even when you mess up and it doesn't get to that hard crack stage and it's soft like a cookie.