USASillyYaks: Milk Chocolate English Toffee.....drool!

Pinterest is evil........they show you yummy pictures of foods and then I just HAVE to try making the recipe. I'm not sure if this one had me by the picture or the tag line " This is the best toffee ever. It is a vintage recipe that my husband's Grandma Utahna used to make. I have made up to 24 batches at Christmastime." OK SOLD!! I pinned the recipe and have made myself wait until December to make it. Well here it is the 7th of December........close enough to Christmas. I made toffee today!! Seeing as I am not really a candy maker, I followed the recipe step by step. The original recipe came from Pinterest, and the pin came from a blog called Red Couch Recipes. OK, well I take that back, I didn't have any nuts, and the original recipe called for nuts, so I left those out. I guess I just can't follow a recipe to the T, it isn't in my genes!!

Milk Chocolate English Toffee (from Red Couch Recipes)

1 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons water

1 cup toasted pecans broken in pieces--Toast in 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Milk chocolate chips

Place toasted pecans in the bottom of 8 x8 pyrex pan. Put butter, sugar, and water in medium heavy sauce pan and cook at high temperature. I always break up my butter in small pieces in the sauce pan. Stir with wooden spoon throughout the cooking time. The mix should always appear fluffy at all times. Cook until mixture turns an amber color, starts to leave the sides of the pan, and is slightly smoking, take off heat and turn immediately over onto prepared nuts. The cooking time is relatively short, depending on your stove, approximately 7 to 8 minutes with a gas stove and 10-11 minutes with an electric stove. These are just approximate times. Let toffee cool for 8 to 10 minutes. Then sprinkle with milk chocolate chips. When chips are melted, swirl around with knife. Let chocolate dry -- this takes several hours. When chocolate is dry, turn over toffee on wax paper and break into pieces.

Candy Making Notes:
While stirring, use a wet pastry brush or clean, wet dishcloth to wash down the sides of the pan to dissolve any undissolved sugar crystals. If you skip this step, the candy might sugar. Also when you pour the toffee mixture on the pecans, do NOT scrape the pan. If you do scrape the pan, this could also cause the mixture to sugar. If you are making more than one batch, make sure that your pan and spoon are clean of sugar crystals. If it DOES sugar, it tastes wonderful broken up and served on a good quality vanilla ice cream. Also, make sure that your toffee is truly an amber color before you take it off the stove.
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Ok, that's the exact recipe from Red Couch, I left out the nuts because I didn't have any on hand. I think that I didn't cook my toffee quite long enough because it sugared on me. UGH! I cooked it longer than her recipe said to cook it, but I think it could have went a little longer. So next time I will cook it longer. It still tastes amazing.......just isn't quite the right texture.