Sunday Sweets: Coffee Toffee

I love today’s Sunday Sweets for two reasons. 1) It’s a mixture of coffee and toffee, one of my favourite drinks and one of my favourite sweets. 2) It rhymes. I think that’s pretty cute. Oh, and there’s a third reason: the recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen whose recipes I really can’t get enough of.

I’ve never had Coffee Toffee before but I’m betting it is going to taste just brilliant. Bitter coffee mixed with the absolute sweetness of toffee? Sounds to me like something you’d find in  a little bowl in the waiting room of Heaven’s office. Add chocolate and nuts into the mix? It could be something Gods snack on.

This recipe is easy shmeasy. The only thing is that it can be a little bit of a challenge if you don’t have a candy thermometer. Which I don’t. Which I really should invest in because a few recipes I’ve tried before called for one. I’m going to use the method where you get a teaspoon of the syrup and drop it into a cup of cold water. If it goes hard? It’s ready. After much googling it takes about 10-15 minutes for the syrup to reach the hard-cracked stage so during that time period, test it in the cold water a few times.

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons honey (or corn syrup or molasses)
1/4 teaspoon salt (or a heaping 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt)
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or other, chopped)
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts (toasted, skinned and cooled – 10-15mins in oven on 180C or 350F) I used a mix of walnut and pecans.

Steps

1. Line a small baking sheet with baking paper and set aside.
2. In medium heavy saucepan, with a candy thermometer attached (if you have one), melt butter, brown sugar, white sugar, honey, salt and espresso together over together.
3. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a whisk until the temperature approaches 250F, at which point you should stir constantly until it reaches 300F. Or use the dropping method I feebly explained above! Google it if you need more clarity and reference.
4. Pour immediately into the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the toffee and let them sit for a minute until soft. Then, spread the chocolate evenly over the toffee. Sprinkle your chopped nut of choice over the toffee and chocolate.
5. Let it sit in room temperature for a while OR put it in the freezer if you’re impatient like me!
6. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container. If you like, you can keep the toffee in the fridge to prevent it from going soft.

THE VERDICT

Yep, I would definitely say this is a treat Gods would snack on. You’ve got your rich and bitter coffee tasted wonderfully complemented by the sweetness of toffee! With an added bonus of chocolate and roasted nuts on top, there is no way you won’t enjoy this! Unless you don’t like coffee. Or don’t like chocolate. Or are allergic to nuts. The you definitely won’t like this.

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