Golden Caramel Toffees: Great for giving and keeping

Toffee, toffee, this is a special request too, but who can say no to this kind of sweet. Caramel toffee is not hard to make if you have a sugar thermometer (but you have to be careful when making it, the hot sugar is extremely dangerous, keep the children and pets away and wear a glove). This is a soft and chewy toffee that reminds me of my love for sweet when I was a child. There is a toffee with a soft caramel filling, taste the same as this one and I love it. When I was a child I always sleep with a toffee in my mouth- “It’s bad for your teeth” – my mom always said that but I couldn’t stop doing it.

Anyway I stop doing that now (ok, I’m grow up and knowing that it’s better to chew it when you awake, haha), but I always love the taste of caramel toffee. Actually I start making it not long ago, before that I think it’s hard to make at home. There will be a lot of toffee when you make this recipe but you can take care of them easily by wrapping them up and send some to your friends, I think they will be glad to see what’s inside these colorful wrappers.

The recipe is from ..............The book that focuses on the small size sweet, most of them are not bigger than 2 inches. It’s good if you like to make all this little things, which always welcomed by anyone.

Note: I think it’s better to warp this sweet little thing in a wrapper even the book suggests cut it into pieces, it’s very sticky. So, I add how to warp it with a paper cup (which mean you don’t have to cut a lot of paper for it, ^ ^ , and they are cute in colorful papers )

Golden Caramel Toffees

Makes about 2 pounds 3 ounces (about 200 pieces small toffee)

1	vanilla bean
2 cups (1 pint)	heavy cream
1 cup	light corn syrup
2 cups (400 grams)	granulated sugar
2 ounces (½ stick)	unsalted butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces
½ teaspoon	salt
	24-karat gold leaf (for decoration)
	Plastic cut into 2 ½ inches square (for cover the toffee
	Paper cup

1. Line bottom and sides of a 9-inch square pan with parchment paper; set aside.

2. Split the vanilla bean in half with a small paring knife, and scrape out the seeds; discard the pod. Add the seeds to the cream in a 1½ -quart saucepan; scald the cream and keep the saucepan near the stove so that if the cream cools too much when needed, you can reheat it briefly.

3. In a deep, heavy-bottomed 4-quart saucepan over low heat, blend the corn syrup and the sugar, stirring occasionally until the mixture becomes more fluid and most of the sugar appears dissolved.

4. Stop stirring, raise heat to medium-high, and gently boil until a candy thermometer registers 305 degrees F (hard-crack stage), about 9 to 10 minutes.

5. Add the butter and salt to the sugar mixture, stirring constantly. Pour in the warm vanilla-flavored cream in a slow but steady stream without letting the boiling stop (be careful-mixture foams up and is steamy). Lower heat to medium and continue to boil gently until the thermometer registers about 248 degrees F, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, about 14 to 15 minutes.

6. Let the candy stand about 3 minutes to allow bubbling to subside, then pour into the prepared pan without scraping the saucepan; allow to cool at least 5 hours.

7. Invert onto a clean cutting board and cut into ½ -inch-wide strips; then cut across the strips to form ½ -inch squares. To apply a patch of gold leaf to each square, use a small artist’s brush. With the brush, lift a tiny patch about the size of an oatmeal flake of gold leaf and deposit it on top of the caramels for decoration.

Note: Before place the caramel toffees on the paper cup place small pieces of the plastic over the cup because it’ll stick to the paper.

Or do it my way: cut the toffee into ½ inch pieces place the toffee on the plastic and place on the paper cup. Twist the top of the paper to hold the toffee.

Golden Caramel Toffees

Golden Caramel Toffees Ready to Go