Homemade Toffee the Easy Way

This homemade toffee has just four ingredients. No candy thermometer required.

My mom’s favourite sweet is butterscotch, that true caramel flavour that you can only get from dark brown sugar and butter. You can buy good butterscotch toffee but in our house the best was always homemade Fredericton Walnut Toffee. It was a Christmastime treat and didn’t last long.

The recipe was another discovery of mom’s out of The Laura Secord Canadian Cook Book that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. According to the recipe headnotes, it was traced back to a cookbook printed in London in 1735 so it is assumed that the recipe was brought to New Brunswick by English settlers.

It’s a simple recipe as far as candy goes. Made with butter and old fashioned brown sugar boiled together it has that addictive toffee flavour and just the right crunch. The hot toffee is poured over toasted walnut pieces and then topped with dark chocolate. It’s absolutely delicious.

I make batch upon batch of this toffee to give as gifts. It’s the only candy that I make all year and once you’ve tried it you’ll know why.

Tips:

• Stir constantly so the mixture doesn’t burn.
• Start testing (drip a bit into a glass of cold water) at the 10-minute mark.
• If it smells like it’s starting to burn before the 12-minute mark, remove from heat and pour it into the prepared pan.
• Be sure to sprinkle over the chocolate chips immediately once the toffee is in the pan.
• Recipe works great with pecans too.