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Alexis
Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 1
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Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: Shipping Toffee? |
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Ok so I want to make toffee for a friend of mine to be shipped probably using a 3 day service, do you think it would be disastrous when opened even if in an airtight container? |
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)
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Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:59 am Post subject: Re: Shipping Toffee? |
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Alexis wrote: | Ok so I want to make toffee for a friend of mine to be shipped probably using a 3 day service, do you think it would be disastrous when opened even if in an airtight container? |
No, I think it will be fine. Even if the chocolate melts a little during transit (perhaps if the package sat in the sun), if you friend lets it cool before eating, the chocolate won't get all over their hands. It might not arrive looking identical to how you prepared it, but it should taste about the same. |
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Guest
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Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:44 am Post subject: excellent recipe for toffee |
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Just made this tonight with left over Valentine's Day chocolates (chopped up, instead of chocolate chips). . .it was fabulous!!!! Better than the recipe I lost years ago. Thank you! |
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Guest
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Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:06 am Post subject: |
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Anonymous wrote: | I have a similar recipe for toffee that I make during the holidays. It used to make up beautifully, but the last few times I have attempted to make it I have had trouble with it breaking (separating) before it gets to 300 degrees. I have tried practically every brand of butter and make sure I use cane sugar. Does anyone know why this happens?
Thanks!
Rachel |
I found that reducing the heat throughout the process, and stirring regularly, will avoid the breaking problem. Even if it looks like it's breaking, it will usually come together fine as long as the heat is not too high. |
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Audrey Guest
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Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 1:59 am Post subject: For Michael Chu who wants to know why its called English tof |
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For Michael Chu who says he lived in England all his life and doesnt know why its called English toffee by Americans - link to this:
http://members.cox.net/jjschnebel/engtoff.html |
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Armando Guest
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Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: Toffee |
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Good morning everybody! For Mr. Chu, toffee is also an old colonial dessert in the former spanish empire South American colonies, mainly Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru (since late 1700īs). For instance, it is called "dulce de leche" (literally, milk candy, in Argentina) or "manjar" (Chile) and is a very popular and frequent in both homes and restaurants. You can find "dulce de leche" in many presentations, including the ones developed in Cooking for engineers, and, more usual, as a more semi-liquid dessert, including "dulce de leche mousse" (superb!!). And it donīt use butter, as main difference, only sugar, milk, vanilla and bicarbonate (a touch) if it will be stored by long. The steps are almost the same. And Michael Chu answered the "anonymous" question, only. He explained the meaning from his point of view; the question come from another participant, Audrey... |
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Toffee Lover Guest
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Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 5:32 am Post subject: Great Recipe |
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I tried making toffee before but found it quite dificult and messy. We always like to send toffee from the Arizona Toffee Company.
www.arizonatoffee.com |
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Toffee Queen Guest
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Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 9:05 pm Post subject: Toffee Variations |
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This is a wonderful website. I love seeing the science behind cooking explained!
I make probably twenty or thirty batches of toffee a year, for gifts and parties. Over the years I've discovered some variations that you might be interested in.
I usually use a 9x13 pan lined with aluminum foil-that way I can just wrap up the sheet of candy in the foil if I don't have time to break it up and package it once it's cool. No need to butter or otherwise prepare the foil.
I usually pour the candy over a layer of nuts (about half a cup) in addition to spinkling another half cup over the chocolate at the end. I usually use almonds and semi-sweet chocolate, but not always. Chopped peanuts are very good with milk chocolate. So are macadamias and coconut. White chocolate is good with pecans. If you toast the nuts in a dry saucepan right before you use them, they will have a lot more flavor.
I always melt the butter then add the water, sugar, and a tablespoon of corn syrup (it's supposed to help keep the sugar from recrystallizing, although that might just be a useless artifact of my starter recipe.) I use three tablespoons of water-or any other flavored nonalcoholic liquid. I've successfully used strong coffee, strong spiced tea, maraschino cherry juice, and orange juice. Alcohol based flavorings should, of course, go in right at the end.
Sometimes I add a 1 oz square of unsweetened chocolate at about 230 degrees. It's especially good with walnuts, and coffee toffee. Watch it carefully, though-it's more likely to burn.
One of my most popular flavors is coffee toffee. I use coffee instead of water, and I coarsely grind expresso beans, pouring the hot candy over half of them and sprinkling the rest over the chocolate.
I also make a cinnamon white chocolate variety. I use strong spice tea in the syrup, pour the candy over toasted almonds, sprinkle with chopped white chocolate (good-quality real white chocolate doesn't melt as readily as regular chocolate-I usually need to stick in a low oven for a few minutes to melt), and sprinkle with cinnamon. This one is very popular.
Orange juice in the syrup, and curls of orange zest sprinkled over the chocolate is good. Maraschino cherries (well drained and dried!) and their juice in the syrup was tasty, though sticky.
You can also make toffee with brown or tubinado sugar. It tastes wonderful, but watch it carefully-because of the impurities in those sugars that make them taste so good, the syrup burns very easily. |
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Frijoles Guest
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Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:42 am Post subject: Tastes good, didn't look too good |
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Just tried the recipe. It actually turned out well enough to eat. However, it didn't ever seem to boil all the water off before it made it to 300 degrees. At 300, it looked like it was just starting, but of course by then I had to remove it from the heat. The result was a granulated mess that oozed butter.
After dumping on to some parchment paper in a cooking sheet, I dumped the excess butter off. It's still very heavy in butter, but tastey none-the-less. Most certainly isn't as smooth as the picture, though. Any idea if it would help to melt everything before adding the sugar, or perhaps cooking it more slowly? This took me about 15 minutes to heat to 300. |
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)
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Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:46 am Post subject: Re: Tastes good, didn't look too good |
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Frijoles wrote: | Just tried the recipe. It actually turned out well enough to eat. However, it didn't ever seem to boil all the water off before it made it to 300 degrees. At 300, it looked like it was just starting, but of course by then I had to remove it from the heat. The result was a granulated mess that oozed butter. |
If your butter isn't melting fast enough to be stirred into the mixture, then melt it first before you add the sugar. Everything should be combined before the sugar temperature starts to rise up - we need to boil off the water content in the butter as well. If the sugar, water, and butter are mixed, then the sugar's temperature will not rise significantly until most of the water has evaporated. |
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Stillian Guest
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Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 2:42 am Post subject: Toffee shelf life |
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Great recipe! What is the shelf life (at room temp) for this toffee? |
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)
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Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 7:35 am Post subject: Re: Toffee shelf life |
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Stillian wrote: | Great recipe! What is the shelf life (at room temp) for this toffee? |
This toffee can easily last for two or more weeks at room temperature in a sealed container. Technically, it'll be perfectly safe to eat for a few months, but the texture may have altered by then. |
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stillian Guest
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Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 3:51 pm Post subject: Re: Toffee shelf life |
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Michael Chu wrote: | Stillian wrote: | Great recipe! What is the shelf life (at room temp) for this toffee? |
This toffee can easily last for two or more weeks at room temperature in a sealed container. Technically, it'll be perfectly safe to eat for a few months, but the texture may have altered by then. |
I have made similar toffee recipes in the past and it appears that while the chocolate and the almonds remain unchanged over time, the butter/sugar toffee layer begins to darken. What exactly is occuring when the toffee darkens? |
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farjane Guest
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Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 10:16 am Post subject: |
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i tried your recipe today. the end result was hard candy and oil. the mixture totally separated. but the candy part hardened and it tastes not too bad. is the toffee supposed to be hard? i wanted a softer toffee. it's just weird if it's hard and has the chocolate and almond. i followed your recipe to teh T and the stages looked the same except after it foams it contimues to foam and foam and then separate. |
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)
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Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 1:10 am Post subject: |
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farjane wrote: | i tried your recipe today. the end result was hard candy and oil. the mixture totally separated. but the candy part hardened and it tastes not too bad. is the toffee supposed to be hard? i wanted a softer toffee. it's just weird if it's hard and has the chocolate and almond. i followed your recipe to teh T and the stages looked the same except after it foams it contimues to foam and foam and then separate. |
I made a few more batches of toffee varying the steps a bit until I achieved the result you described - hard candy in a large puddle of oil. I managed to get this result buy melting the butter first and then pouring in the sugar. The butter and sugar never really integrated even after the sugar had melted and seemed to be mixed in.
I now believe that carefully melting the butter and sugar (with a tad of water to help) together at the start is essential to making this recipe work easily. Make sure the two are melted together before bringing the heat up to boil the mixture. |
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