Failed Toffee Candy

 

So far I've made five batches of toffee (actually six, since one of them was a double batch), and three of them have turned out. The first one that failed was (I think) because I didn't cook it long enough. As for the other one, which was the double batch, my guess is that the butter wasn't good quality--not that it was rancid, but that it had too much water in it, or something like that. Or maybe I just didn't cook it long enough. For the first batch that failed, I just ate the chocolate off the top and threw away the rest. But I really didn't want to do that with the double batch, since it had an entire pound of butter (and a pound of sugar) in it.

By the way, if you're wondering what happens when toffee fails, it doesn't turn the color of toffee, and it looks and tastes like you melted butter , stirred sugar into it, and let it cool. And then there's a layer of melted chocolate on top. (Toffee does take time to set, so make sure you've let it cool overnight before you call it "failed.")

So I scraped the chocolate off the top and put the butter-sugar mixture back into the pan. I put it back over medium heat and cooked it awhile. I drained off quite a lot of liquid (the reason why I think the butter had too much water) , and then I saw some dark-brown color that looked like it was burning, and I decided it probably wouldn't turn into toffee, so I gave up on it. I took it off the heat, left the pot on the stove, and ate dinner. (end of a long day--can you tell?)

The next day I noticed it had hardened in the pot. Now it looked like maple sugar candy, except without the maple--but it had that texture. Sort of like toffee-flavored maple sugar candy. Anyway, I took a knife and chipped it out of the pot. Now it looked a bit like brown sugar but tasted a whole lot better.

Since it still had the toffee taste, I decided to make it into something else. I melted some dark chocolate, mixed in the crumbled failed toffee mixture, and added some sliced toasted almonds. I poured some into the toffee pan and dropped the rest by spoonfuls onto parchment paper. I cooled it in the fridge and cut it into squares. It's delicious. I can't stop eating it.

I'm going to make some more toffee today. Of course, I do want it to turn out, but if it doesn't, I can always make some more of this...