Swiss Milk Toffee Recipes

Steps:

• Grease one 7x11 inch baking pan and another of half the capacity.
• Put the sugar, condensed milk, milk and water into a large, deep saucepan (I use a pressure cooker pan). Add a walnut sized piece of butter.
• Heat the mix gently until all the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil.
• Reduce the heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally. It needs to cook for up to an hour, but the colour will change from an unappealing beige to a golden caramel as it cooks, showing it's nearly ready.
• The toffee is ready when it reaches the soft ball stage. Use a candy thermometer, or drop a teaspoonful into some cold water.
• Half fill the sink with cold water and place the saucepan in it. Beat the toffee with a wooden spoon until smooth and thick. Stir in the vanilla, if using.
• Pour the toffee into the baking pans, getting all the really liquid part of it out of the saucepan. (As it sets, white "blooms" may appear. These are just milk solids (probably from the butter).
• Scrape the toffee that has stuck to the sides of the pan out with a metal spoon. This should give nuggets and flakes of toffee.
• When the toffee in the baking pans has set, score and cut into squares.

Steps:

• Neatly line the base and sides of a 20x30cm baking tin with baking parchment. Tip the sugars, cream and butter into a large heavy-based deep saucepan and heat gently, stirring occasionally until all the ingredients have come together and the sugars and butter have melted. Place a sugar thermometer or digital cooking thermometer in the pan, turn up the heat and boil everything together vigorously without stirring until the temperature reaches 125C. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Leave for a moment for any bubbles to settle, then carefully pour the molten toffee into the prepared tin, swirling the tin until the toffee covers the base. Leave the toffee for at least 2hrs to set - overnight is ideal.
• Use the parchment to lift the set toffee out of the tin and cut into squares or fingers. If the toffee is sticking to the knife, lightly oil the blade. Wrap the toffees in waxed paper and store in a jar for up to two weeks at room temperature or a month in the fridge.