Updated: by Marc Matsumoto · 15 Comments
With bits of golden roasted almonds held together by crunchy butter toffee, all slathered in dark chocolate, this sweet treat is as easy to make as it is addictive.
Recipe Pin
I know it's not exactly holiday baking season yet, but I picked up a box of Ruth's Toffee while I was in Colorado a few weeks ago and it was good... like hide-in-a-closet-and-eat-the-whole-box good. As with anything so tasty, it didn't last long, so I've spent the week making mistakes and perfecting this almond toffee recipe so that it's nearly impossible to mess up.
Although it often goes by the name of "English Toffee" in the US, this is just one of the many styles of toffee in the UK, and it's more commonly known as Buttercrunch over there. The main difference with other styles of toffee is the copious addition of butter, which gives it the flavor of a soft caramel, yet because the sugar is only brought to the hard crack stage, it has a crunchy texture that's indescribably addicting.
Brittles are another type of candy which involves cooking sugar to the hard crack stage and adding nuts, but butter toffee has a significantly different texture due to the addition of copious amounts of butter. Brittles tend to be very hard and crunchy, while butter toffee is hard at first, but almost immediately melts into a glorious pool of sweet buttery goodness.
If you're not sold yet, the best part of this almond butter toffee is that it's ridiculously easy to make. Butter, water, corn syrup and sugar just get boiled together until they reach 300 degrees F at which point some vanilla and roasted almonds are added. This gets dumped on a non-stick surface to cool. You don't even need to worry about melting the chocolate separately as it melts itself on the warm sheet of toffee!
The only place that you could get hung up on is having the sugar crystalize on you part of the way through, in which case the sugar and butter separate when it finally melts again. To avoid this, I've made two alterations to the traditional recipe that makes it almost impossible to fail. The first trick is to add an invert sugar such as corn syrup or honey. Unlike table sugar, which consists fructose and glucose molecules bound together to form sucrose, invert sugars consist of free glucose and fructose molecules. The small molecules are like throwing an off-brand of blocks into a box of Legos, making it very difficult for the sucrose to crystalize because the different sugar molecules don't fit together neatly.
The second trick is to add the sugar in the center of the pot, covering it with a lid, and boiling it with the butter mixture without stirring it at first. This prevents granules of sugar from sticking to the sides of the pan, which can later fall back into the toffee causing it to crystalize. Once the sugar is fully melted you can uncover it and stir it continuously to ensure that it browns evenly.
After the toffee has cooled it easily snaps into pieces by hand, but if you want to cut the toffee into bite-size pieces, a hammer and a clean wide chisel works great. Just be careful not to smack it too hard or you'll have pieces of toffee flying all over your kitchen! I like to store my butter toffee in the fridge because it gives it a better texture, and it also has the added benefit of making it keep longer (not that this would ever be a problem given how quickly it will disappear).
📖 Recipe
Best Butter Toffee
4.41 from 5 votes
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Prep Time 5 minutes mins
Cook Time 20 minutes mins
Total Time 25 minutes mins
Yield 12 large pieces
Units
Ingredients
- 160 grams whole almonds
- 200 grams cultured unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons water
- ¼ cup corn syrup
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 200 grams granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 100 grams dark chocolate roughly chopped
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degree F. Put the almonds on a baking sheet and roast for 12-14 minutes, stirring once in the middle to ensure they brown evenly. When the almonds are golden brown and fragrant, remove the pan from the oven and allow the almonds to cool.
When the nuts are cool, put them in a food processor and pulse until chopped into ⅛-inch pieces. You can also do this with a knife.
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Line a 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper.
Add the butter, water, corn syrup, and salt to a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat and melt the butter, stirring to keep the mixture emulsified.
Add the sugar into a mound in the center, being very careful not to get any sugar crystals on the sides of the pot. Cover with a lid and cook without stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Remove the lid, turn down the heat to medium low and cook, stirring continuously until the toffee reaches 300 degrees F.
Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla and half of the almonds.
Pour the butter toffee onto your lined baking sheet and spread into a ¼-inch thick sheet. Be very careful as the toffee is a hot and sticky!
Distribute the chocolate over the top of the toffee in a roughly evenly layer and let it melt.
When the chocolate has melted, spread it into an even layer on top of the toffee.
Sprinkle the rest of the almonds on top of the melted chocolate and let the toffee cool completely.
Break the toffee into pieces and enjoy!
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Nutrition
Calories 331kcalCarbohydrates 28gProtein 3gFat 23gSaturated Fat 11gCholesterol 36mgSodium 56mgPotassium 157mgFiber 2gSugar 24gVitamin A 415IUCalcium 46mgIron 1.5mg
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Reader Interactions
Comments
linda hess says
I plan to package and ship this for the holidays. Is there a shelf limit?? What would you suggest as the best way to package the toffee for gift giving? Wavering between breaking it up or leaving it as a whole. Thank you in advance.
Reply
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Linda, if refrigerate this will keep for months. If it's kept in a cool room, it should last for a few weeks. As for packaging, leaving them whole would make for a prettier presentation, but it presents a challenge for your recipients to break it up, so it might be better to break them up into portions before you gift them. I'd recommend wrapping them in parchment paper, and then you can put them into a food-safe box, or you could put them into nice jars (with a wide lid). The one thing to watch out for with boxes is that these will start to get sticky in very humid environments, so if you're in a place that's hot and humid, you'll probably want to go with packaging that can be sealed.
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Jaya says
Hi..is this compound or couverture chocolate?
Reply
Marc Matsumoto says
It's couverture chocolate. I can't remember the exact one I used, but Valrhona Caraïbe is what I most commonly use.
Reply
linda hess says
I have never made toffee before, but it is my stepmom's favorite so here I go! The recipe was so easy to follow. I think the hardest part will be waiting for it to cool. If it tastes as good as it looks, I foresee many more batches in the near future.
Reply
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Linda, thanks for the nice note! I hope you and your gift recipients enjoy it! I personally had to stop making this because I was eating too much of it😆 Might make an exception for Christmas though.
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Eguchi says
Marc, any ideas as to what I could sub for the nuts (allergy)?
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Marc Matsumoto says
Is your allergy with all nuts, or just tree nuts? If you can eat other types of nuts like peanuts, then that's a possibility, otherwise you could use something like roasted soy beans.
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Kathy says
This is EXACTLY how I've made toffee for over 20 years, except I now have to make huge batches because everyone knows how delicious it is! I've never heard of Ruth's, but we used to get Enstrom's gifted from my brother in Denver; your version is just as good. I like to make my caramel on the dark side, and heavily roast the almonds. I like having control of these elements so you can customize the candy to your personal taste. Hazelnuts work well here, too; just remove the skins after roasting. Semi-sweet or milk chocolate also work fine. I usually cover the pan of chocolate-covered-toffee with a sheet pan to speed up the melting.It's a great recipe for gift-giving or cookie exchanges. Once you try this, though, you may discover that you don't like anyone well enough to be willing to share!
Reply
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Kathy, that's about 15 years longer than I've been making toffee! Enstrom's is great too, but I'm with you on making it yourself to get it just the way you like it. I've done this with peanuts and macadamia nuts, but haven't tried hazelnuts yet (I was traumatized as a young chef after having to peel a large box of hazelnuts once). I do love the flavor combo though so I'll have to give it a shot.
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Arundathi says
It was just fantastic!!! Thank you for a fool proof recipe!
Reply
Marc Matsumoto says
You're welcome Arundathi! Thanks so much for reporting back to let me know it turned out. I hope it sates your Ruth's toffee cravings😉
Reply
Arundathi says
Omg. Having bookmarked your recipes a very long time ago, I finally made it today. Never made caramel nor even used a candy thermometer, so was very apprehensive. It’s cooling now, haven’t tasted it yet - but it looks so good. When it got to 290, I dropped my thermometer in the candy while furiously stirring :(, but removed from heat and spread it. I am addicted to Ruth’s toffee, so if it tastes anything like that, god bless you forever! 🙂
Reply
Antonia Wong says
Can I replace the corn syrup with honey instead? Thanks!
Reply
Marc Matsumoto says
HI Antonia, I've never tried it, but honey is an invert sugar, so it should work.
Reply
