i'm headed down to LA to spend thanksgiving with dennis' family, so i decided to make some english toffee to bring with me to hand out to my hosts.
i'm always testing recipes. some are fine/whatever, some fail miserably (all of the pomegranate recipes) & some, like every recipe by gale gand that i have ever tried, are just excellent.
i adapted my english toffee from this recipe by gale gand, leaving out the cocoa powder & instead topping with some bittersweet chocolate.
the fog has been super heavy here in SF, so i was playing dodge ball this weekend to get the candy done in about a 2 hour window of meager sunshine (humidity is candy's enemy).
i made two batches. #1 - per gale's recipe, i used marcona almonds & cooked to 300 deg. i discovered a hot spot on my burner & so the texture was a little inconsistent-- tiny pockets that were a bit chewier than the rest of toffee around it. probably no one would even notice, but this minor detail is the sort of thing that annoys me.
#2 - i did this one on another burner & things went much better. i had even bubbling over the entire surface & i also took the candy off the heat at 295 deg. it turned out perfectly! batch #2 is plain toffee covered with bittersweet chocolate & topped with slivered, toasted almonds.
