| Recipe: |
When I was a kid, Mom and I made the recipe for Toffee Fudge (in this section) countless times and it turned out perfectly crunchy and delicious. A few years after I was on my own, I lost my toffee mojo and whenever I tried the old recipe I ended up with a soft/grainy candy that lacked the hard crunch that made it awesome to me. Then I discovered Brickle Bars at See's Candy and I had a place to get my fix. Then, quite a few years ago, See's stopped making brickle bars (because, clearly, they are mean). I was in a mall recently and popped into a See's to see if they had come to their senses... they had (kind of) -- they had a "chocolate size" piece of the crunchy almond brickle with dark chocolate coating. I came home with 4 pieces, rationed them to one/day and four days later went into withdrawal. SO, I returned to a recipe I'd found quite awhile ago (but been suspicious of since it used granulated sugar instead of the brown I was used to) on the Cooking for Engineers website. I morphed it with another recipe I found searching "Cook's Illustrated crunchy toffee" and what I have cooling in the fridge looks promising...
1 c. almonds, coarsely chopped
4-5 oz. dark chocolate, chopped (or chocolate chips)*
1 c. butter
1/4 t. salt
1 T. water
1 c. granulated sugar
* 9 squares from Trader Joe’s 70% Pound Plus bar
Set out a cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat or lined with parchment.
In a 2 qt. saucepan over LOW heat*, combine butter, salt, water, and sugar, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves. I am assured by both recipes that slow/low heating to start is MISSION CRITICAL to avoiding separation of fat/sugar later on (and since that's a problem I've had with the Toffee Fudge, I choose to believe them). Check that sugar has dissolved by dropping a bit of the mixture on the cookie sheet, waiting a moment for it to cool, and rubbing it between your fingers, feeling for granules of sugar. Add the almonds and slowly raise the heat. You're looking to hit 300 F (at which point you're super close to burning the sugar... and are likely to have some burnt on the bottom of the pan if you stop stirring for even a couple seconds). I used my Thermapen to keep track, though a candy thermometer should do (you may want to start checking for crunch 10-20 degrees early... tap your wooden spoon on a butter knife or metal measuring cup and bite the sugar that sticks (it should cool pretty fast)... if it crunches, you're done). Since my hot plate is the one I use for distilling essential oils, it has an upright rod with lab clamps, so I just clamp the Thermapen/candy thermometer in place; if you don't have that, use your third arm to hold the thermometer :-).
When you're at 300 F, quickly dump toffee on cookie sheet and spread with a silicone spatula or butter knife. Sprinkle chocolate on top and wait a few minutes for it to melt. Spread the chocolate. Let the toffee cool briefly on the counter, then move it to the fridge or freezer. Break it into pieces once it's chilled. Store in the fridge.
*I use a hot plate for recipes that require fine temperature controls... my flat top stove burners cycle between on/100% and off and the intensity of heat when they're ON seems likely to burn the sugar. The coil burners on my $10 hotplate have a lot more control. [Note to self: To gracefully hit the right max temp, play around with the dial at “noon” to just above “noon”.]
One recipe has a final mass of 630 g with 255 g of carb... so this has a carb factor of about 0.40 |
