sorry, I don’t have a long winded story about the first time i had toffee, or who used to make it for me (no one did). it’s just candy, it’s surprisingly easy to make. i’ll put a story about the history of heath bars at the bottom without doing any additional research

ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS / TOOLS

1. You have to use unsalted butter. Salt has a way of changing the way things merge and cook. Using salted butter won’t work.
2. Use a ratio of 1 stick of unsalted butter for each half cup of sugar, depending on how much you want. I usually do 2 sticks of butter and 1 cup of sugar.
3. The pinch of salt is for the cooking process, not for taste. It should remain the same no matter how big of a batch you make.
4. The parchment paper will make it a little easier and cleaner, but you should be fine without it.
5. The candy thermometer will take some guess work out, but you can definitely eyeball it with practice. If you’re looking to buy one, I don’t have a ton of experience, but I prefer analog. Digital ones are easier to read but those parts die out eventually. An old fashioned thermometer with that rising red line always works. Unless you drop it or something.

chop the butter into smaller pieces, throw it in a sauce pan with the sugar and salt

set to low heat and stir until it’s like, kinda soupy but well combined. at one point it’ll look like applesauce, keep going! one recipe I used said to stir in the same direction the whole time, I’m not sure if it really matters but that’s how I do it, because why would a recipe lie.

once it’s all combined and blended and congruent, turn the heat up a bit, i do about halfway between LO and MID. keep stirring until you start to see bubbles. stop stirring, put your candy thermometer in, and just WAIT. use the spatula to separate the toffee from the sides and bottom of the pan a couple times in the process, don’t go crazy.

if you haven’t already chopped your nut of choice, you can do it during this step. i use cashews!

just let it boil and bubble and toil and trouble until the thermometer hits 137°C (mine has notches for 125 and 150, 137.5 is exactly between the two). At this point it’s done, but I like to let it go for a liiiiittle bit longer until it reaches this nice golden brown. also be careful, this shit will BURN you.

now you’re gonna immediately pour it into the pan, give it a little time to spread across the pan on its own. once it’s settled, you’re gonna gently drop chocolate chips evenly across the surface. you don’t want them falling too far in.

After a few minutes, use your spatula to spread the chocolate chips evenly across the toffee. it’ll have this fun kinda jello-y quality so be gentle!!! drops your chopped nuts onto the chocolate, you can put a lil ziploc bag over your hand (to keep chocolate off your fingers) to press them in if you want. you could probably use a sheet of parchment paper if you’re into that! i skip that step but a lot of the nuts do end up falling off later, it’s mostly fine!

now just put it in the fridge for a couple hours to let it set and cool and whatever else they call it.

once it’s done just break it up and eat it UP. that’s it! it’s SO easy!

Okay time for that heath bar story:

Basically the Heath Company just made the Heath Bar. Hershey wanted to compete to they made the Skol bar. They wanted to make a better version, and tbh they did. The Skol bar kinda rules. In comparison at least, I’ve had some great toffee made by like, some amish women or something? Used to steal it from the co-op I worked at cause that place was a fuckin’ nightmare.

Anyway, doesn’t matter how good the Skol bar is, people just love the fuckin’ Heath bar. There’s something about it that just feels right. Hershey gets so mad they outright buy the Heath company. But people just love the Heath bar, no one gives a shit about the Skol bar. It’s got a weird name, it’s just different, I dunno.

So now, Hershey makes both the Skol bar, and the Heath bar. The Heath Bar is lower quality, made a different way, but they still make both recipes and just hope people are gonna buy the Skol bar. But they won’t.

Okay that’s it, hope you enjoy the toffee!