English Toffee

Grandpa started making this candy after all of the Kautz children were grown. He made a big production out of it and hand grandma scurrying around getting everything ready.

Ingredients

• 1 lb butter
• 1 lb (2 cups) blanched almonds, chopped into small pieces.
• 1 lb (2 cups) granulated sugar
• 1 lb chocolate (Hershey's bars, Ghirardelli, etc., either milk or semi-sweet chocolate, your choice)
• 1 c or so of ground whole almonds
• 1 t vanilla

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in the saucepan, on high, or med high. Stirring constantly, as the butter is nearly melted, stir in the sugar. Stir constantly (this is a theme). As the sugar and butter bind together, add the almonds (stir constantly). At this stage, this is very important, since the bad thing that can happen is the butter starts to separate from the mixture. Continue stirring until the toffee mixture reaches hard crack on the candy thermometer (about 300 degrees). The candy should be a mapley brown color and all bound together.
2. Remove from stove and stir in the teaspoon vanilla. Let rest 30 seconds. Ten divide the mixture between the two cookie seets and spread the coffee as thinly as possible. Two people are really nice to have for this moment!
3. Let cool.
4. Melt the chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Spread the chocolate thinly on the toffee and sprinkle with the ground almonds let cool until chocolate solidifies.
5. Turn the toffee over, and yes, at this point , the sheet may break into smaller sheets. Nevertheless, turn it over, and repeat the chocolate and ground almond step on the second side. Let cool.
6. Break into pieces and munch away

Grandpa Kautz 07/25/14