Cooking For Engineers

[Guest]

silly question but I made toffe years ago. with a simular rexcipie to this but we used brown suger instead of cane, wiould this one work with brown as well?

[Lintballoon]

Anyone try this using maple syrup in addition to the cane sugar? Or honey?
If they don't work, perhaps they should be added at the end, along with the vanilla.
Michael, since you have tackled oil, flour and food additives, perhaps a article on different sugars would interest the community.
Out of curiousity I recently bought some Barley sugar syrup from King Authur Flour, but don't know quite what to do with it.

[RS]

Hi!

I made this recipe for Christmas, and everyone raved about it.
For Easter, I decided to double the recipe and give some as a gift.

Everything looked fine during melting/heating process. It reached 150C without any problems.

However....after it set only the ends were hard and crunchy. The middle was much softer and almost like a toffee/butterscotch fudge. Any ideas on what went wrong?

I divided it between two parchment paper lined cookie sheets. Do you think it was still too thick in the middle?

Would a metal tray hold the heat too long and cause cooling problems? Should I have lined a glass tray or just lined the countertop?

Also, after I removed it from the heat and added the vanilla, it seemed to bubble a lot more than I remember. I had trouble mixing the vanilla in and I actually thought some of it might be burning because I was seeing brown streaks in the toffee. There were no brown streaks after it set, but could that have caused the problem?

Thanks in advance. I love the site. I also used your Biscotti recipe yesterday and they turned out great :-)

[kab012345]

Nice recipe. It works great.

Also, don't forget to visit ToffeeKing Forums in my profile!

[Rich]

I recently bought a digital thermometer and came across this site as an ideal excuse to test it out. I want to thank Michael for such a fun recipe, it worked out great. The consistency of the toffee is spot on with just the right amount of crack and brittleness, the flavor is a little on the light side as per previous comments but still delicious. I pulled the mixture off at 305 degrees and dropped a half a cup of toasted almonds in to make it taste slightly toastier, next time I think I'll try to toast raw almonds in the mixture from the start and pull it at 315 to try to boost the flavor quotient. I also added a tablespoon of corn syrup to the mixture to ward off crystalization, used low heat to melt the butter initially, and covered for 2 minutes once it started to boil to let steam condense and run down the sides of the pot to rinse off any stray crystals. After 2 minutes I pulled the cover, went to medium heat and started stirring. It worked perfectly, no crystalization issues whatsoever. Thanks again.

[Guest]

Always include the salt, or just use salted butter- otherwise it will separate and the butter will drain away.
You also don't need parchment paper or anything. Just pour it into a clean sheet; when it;'s cool, it will pop right off the sheet.

[Guest]

Hi,

I did this recipe, but added Birch sap syrup in the ratio of 1:1 with the other ingridents.

Did it live on web cam with quiet a few viewers watching me, and then a write up about my little adventure on a forum board.

Here's the link.
http://overthegate.myfreeforum.org/about1634.html&highlight=


Regards From Gareth

Mead; If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the woods, Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!

www.overthegate.com

[Guest]

This treat is far better to serve for colleagues for your birthday, than the usual cake. Make a tin of them and leave them on your desk for everyone to pick from, and you will get all the positive attention you could wish, for the rest of the week!

After having made these excellent treats for several birthdays, I started to coat them with chocolate and roll them in chopped almonds after cutting them apart (using a pizza cutter). This way the chocolate stays on the toffee, and fingers are protected from chocolate by the almonds, when picking. Another advantage is that the chocolate tended to fall off when breaking the toffee apart. And so did the almonds.

[Mike]

First, thanks for running a great site. Just a couple of comments on the recipe. I make toffee the same way, but with a teaspoon full of vinegar in the mix. Don't ask me what the vinegar is for. It's just the way I was taught the recipe. Surpirisingly you don't taste it in the toffee, so I guess it must be in there to do something to the butter during the process. Maybe one of you chemistry guys can figure out what. Second, I don't have a themometer so I do the temperature by smell. As soon as the mix begins to smell like you're wondering of it might be burning its done. Don't wait until you nose tells you its burning for sure. By that stage its burnt. Another way to tell is that a drop of mix off a spoon into cold water solidifies and sinks if it's done. You don't need to test for degrees of solidity - the test is basically as between a ball of toffee or a slick of goo. Thanks again for the site. Mike in England.

[Rachel G]

I just recently tried a simular recipe with perfect results.... untill the 4th batch and now i cannot keep it together. But reading all the tips and coments i will try again.

I also have a dehumidifyer in the kitchen due to my candy making (living in MI it get's fairly humid this time of year). Should I keep it set a 35% humidity?

I made it great and gave it out only to have orders come back at the point when I couldn't make it anymore.

[Reggie]

I have a recipe that calls for cooking the toffee on the stove first, then pouring onto crackers and baking for 5 minutes. My question is if the toffee should still come up to the same temperature/consistency of regular toffee. I am thinking it might be less, due to the fact that we are then baking it.

Thanks

[Donna]

I've been making toffee for 15 years, and I've never had a problem with it separating... I use a heavy All-Clad sauce pan, and add all my ingredients at the beginning on low-medium heat (butter, sugar, water, corn syrup).

Over the course of the years, I've found that it takes me a good half hour to make a batch of toffee. It cannot be rushed, and I have a special wooden soon that I use to constantly stir and incorporate the ingredients. It looks very much like a regular wooden spoon, but the tip is flattened, so's I can get into the corner of the saucepan. I wet down the interior sides of the pan, so it cooks evenly.

Usually after it hits 270, there's a tiny window where it finishes up at 290-- it goes wicked fast, so I watch it like a hawk.

[ld323]

I am trying to package toffee to sell. Does anyone know how to keep it from getting soft? What is the best way to package it? Right now, I am putting it in mason jars. Any suggestions to make it stay hard, and last a long time?

[Guest]

I am trying to get a jump on my holiday baking this year and made six batches of toffee this afternoon...some more successful than others...guess I should have read this website BEFORE making them! Trying to watch your favorite football team and make toffee at the same time may not be such a great idea....anyway, all six batches are now sealed in airtight FoodSaver bags in my refrigerator downstairs. I haven't broken them into pieces yet, they are still in large sheets. I am wondering if I made them too early, or if they will still be good next month when I really need them. Would it be better if I put them in the freezer? I guess I will find out when I pull them out and break them up.

[columbinetoffee]

I just came across this forum by accident. It's Great! I'm a professional toffee maker. I make between 7,000 to 10,000 pounds a year, since 1995. My company is Columbine Gourmet Almond Toffee.
As I get time I will visit the forum and help with any questions you may have about making toffee. As many of you have discovered, toffee making can be difficult.