English Toffee

So last night, Paige and I attended a class at The French Kitchen Culinary Center in Colorado Springs. While many of the classes involve French cuisine, this one was an "English Toffee" class.

The toffee is very easy to make and absolutely delicious. The key seems to be to measure ingredients very precisely. I don't think I'm supposed to give away the center's recipes on a public blog, but here is a similar recipe. One can play around with it and sprinkle, for example, ground peppermint candy, toasted coconut, other types of nut, etc., over the melted chocolate.

I'm told that it would be sacrilegious to: 1) use Hershey's chocolate chips (Belgian chocolate chips are apparently better), and 2) use American butter (which I understand has less butterfat and less beta carotene than European butter; I think Irish butter will do).

Note: The final temperature for the "hard-crack stage", achieved when boiling the toffee, is given in the linked recipe as 300°F. This applies at sea level. Above sea level, the temperature needs to be dropped by 2°F for every 1,000 feet one ascends.