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Almond Toffy
Boil a pound of sugar, with half a pint of water, until it is brittle. Throw in one ounce and a half of sweet almonds, blanched and cut into halves, with two ounces of butter. It is done when it hardens on a little being put into cold water. Pour out on a well-oiled dish. Time, quarter of an hour. Sufficient for a small dish full. Probable cost, 8d.
A plain hard-crack sugar boil with almonds stirred in at the end. The only real difficulty is judging the sugar, and a thermometer removes it.
- The hinge: 300-310F"Until it is brittle" is the hard-crack stage, 300-310F (149-154C). Below that the toffy stays tacky and pulls teeth; much above 320F the sugar starts to colour and turn bitter. Clip on a sugar thermometer and stop guessing.
- The cold-water testIf you work without a thermometer, drop a little syrup into a glass of very cold water: at hard crack it sets into threads that snap cleanly rather than bending. Change the water between tests, since warm water gives a false soft reading.
- Half a pintAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 285 ml, to a pound (450 g) of sugar. The exact ratio scarcely matters -- nearly all of it boils off -- but more water simply means a longer boil.
- Sweet almondsThe word "sweet" distinguishes them from bitter almonds, which were sold in Victorian groceries for flavouring and are hard to obtain today. Ordinary blanched almonds are what is meant; split them lengthways rather than chopping so they sit flat in the slab.
- Adding the butterTwo ounces (55 g) of cold butter dropped into sugar at 300F will spit violently and drop the temperature. Have it cut small and at room temperature, take the pan off the heat, and stir it in quickly and thoroughly or the toffy will weep fat as it sets.
- Don't stir the boilStir only until the sugar dissolves, then leave it alone and wash any crystals from the pan sides with a wet brush. Agitating a hot syrup is the usual cause of a grainy, cloudy slab.
- The oiled dishA shallow metal tray or a rimmed baking sheet, lightly oiled or lined with a silicone mat, works better than a china dish, which can crack under the heat. Pour to about 1 cm and score into squares with an oiled knife as it firms up, after four or five minutes.
- Time and yieldThe quarter of an hour is the boiling time and depends entirely on your pan and burner; go by temperature. A pound of sugar with the butter and almonds gives roughly 550 g of toffy, enough for a small tray, and it keeps a couple of weeks in an airtight tin -- humidity turns it sticky within hours if left out.
Toffee spellings were unsettled through the nineteenth century -- toffy and taffy both appear in print -- and the word's origin is disputed, though it is often linked to the treacle trade of the north of England. The cook is being taught to recognise hard crack by eye and by the cold-water test, a skill that also governs barley sugar, nougat and spun sugar. The costing of eightpence is a reminder of how the book was used, at a period when the sugar duties were being reduced.