From Scratch to Scrumptious

Making gourmet toffee at home is beginner-level easy! Save yourself a trip to Sees Candy (and about $30)! No candy-thermometer required!

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Many years ago, my mom sent my family Sees Victorian Toffee. It was delicious! When it was gone, I pined after that delightful confection.

Years later, I came across a simple toffee recipe. I was excited to try it! I altered it slightly to make it closer to Sees, and I was not disappointed!

This toffee is so easy to make that you’ll never spend money on store-bought toffee ever again!

10-Minute Toffee Ingredients

Almonds: If you want to make toffee just like Sees Candy, they use almonds. I recommend roasted, salted whole almonds. They’ll give the toffee an extra depth of flavor as compared to blanched or raw.

Feel free to substitute with any nut you prefer.

If you have young kids or plan to share this with people who can’t or won’t eat nuts, you can leave them out entirely. I usually leave half with no nuts for my kids.

Brown Sugar: Fun fact: Both brown sugar and white sugar will cook down to make toffee. One year, I did a side-by-side taste test amongst my family and friends. Brown sugar won! (See below for more details about brown vs. white sugar toffee)

If you run out of brown sugar, you can swap out for white sugar.

Butter: No substitutes here!

Chocolate Chips: I use semi-sweet chocolate chips. I always have them around and the flavor pairs very well.

You can swap out for milk chocolate or dark chocolate, if you prefer.

How to Make 10 Minute Toffee

Preparations

Grease your square baking dish with butter.

If you’re making a Sees Candy copycat toffee, you’ll want to use roasted, salted almonds as the nut. If you have a different favorite, go with that!

Place your nuts in a baggie or between 2 sheets of waxed paper and lightly pound them until each almond is broken up into smaller pieces.

Pour the almond pieces into your greased baking dish. Set aside.

Cook the Toffee Layer

In a medium saucepan, mix butter and brown sugar. Cook over medium heat. At first, you’ll have a top layer of melted butter over wet brown sugar.

Keep cooking, stirring constantly until the mixture looks more homogenous, kind of fluffy, velvety and light.

Eventually, your toffee will stop boiling so much and look more like caramel sauce. You can see that it’s getting just a bit darker. At this point, watch for a slightly smokey aroma. When you smell it, you’re almost done.

Keep stirring and cooking until you see a light smoke coming from the bottom of the pan. Your toffee is done!

Add the Layers

Immediately pour the hot candy over the nuts in your prepared dish.

If your toffee doesn’t cover the corners, you can tip your dish back and forth to try to get it to run into any empty spaces.

Sprinkle chocolate chips over the top.

Cover your dish with a flat cookie sheet. You want to trap the heat to melt the chocolate. Let it sit about 3 minutes.

When melted, smooth the chocolate layer with either a knife or offset spatula. I use this 9″ Wilton Offset Spatula (Amazon link).

Why is it so satisfying to spread melted chocolate?

Now, you can score the toffee into strips as big as you want them. I like small, 1-bite sized pieces, so I score into about 1″ – 1 1/2″ strips. Do you have to score it? Nope. It’ll break either way, but sometimes this makes it easier.

All Done! (Kind of)

Now, you can put your toffee in the fridge. Your work here is done! In about an hour, it will be cooled and hardened enough to break into pieces.

Or you can forget about it until just before you want to serve it and break it then.

You can see how well the scoring helped me break my toffee into nice, clean strips. Basically not at all. But sometimes it works.

Keep breaking until you get pieces the size you want.

Now’s the hardest part. Try not to eat it all before you have to give it out at Christmas. Maybe you’d better make a second batch just to be safe…

How To Store 10 Minute Gourmet Toffee

Keep this toffee tightly covered in Tupperware or a glass dish in the fridge. Because the chocolate is not tempered, only melted, it will soften if left out at room temperature for too long.

Your toffee will keep up to 6 months in the fridge.

Can I Freeze Toffee?

Yes, according to Dr. Google, it is fine to freeze. I’ll be honest: I’ve never frozen it. I have never had any problems eating all the toffee I make within 6 months, so I just keep mine in the fridge.

Can I Double This Recipe?

Yes, it is easy to make a double batch of toffee in the same medium saucepan. No adjustments need to be made for cooking, except that it may take longer than 7 minutes to reach the “smoke stage”.

Use a 9″ x 13″ baking dish (instead of an 8″ x 8″).

Comparing Brown Vs. White Sugar in Toffee

In the side-by-side taste test for white sugar vs brown sugar toffee, there were minor differences in texture and taste. My husband, who knows what he likes but not always why, said they both taste delicious. My daughter, mother-in-law and friends were a bit more discerning.

White sugar gave a more satisfying crisp with what seemed like fine sheets of toffee layered in the candy. Brown sugar seemed slightly more solid and chewy. To be fair, though, the difference was small, and the casual eater would never notice.

But when it came to taste, the brown sugar resulted resulted in a darker, more complex flavor that was overall better than white sugar. And nothing is better than good taste.

The debate was settled. Brown sugar won.

Toffee Uses

Eating: Obviously! Put a plate of this toffee out at your Christmas party next to your cookies!

Christmas Gifts: This toffee makes great Christmas gifts! It looks fancy and expensive, but you can whip up a bunch quickly without breaking the bank! Perfect for a month when time and budgets are tight!

Topping: Break up the toffee into tiny pieces and use to top ice cream.

Baking: Break up the toffee into small pieces and mix into brownie batter, banana bread batter, or cookie dough. Or sprinkle on top of them after they’re baked.

Happy Candy Making!