Aunt Eva's Turn in the Kitchen-Making Toffee

By Linda Lovely

My great nephew, Duncan Nowling, and a friend recently visited. In addition to spending time enjoying the lake, Duncan had an in-the-kitchen request. He wanted to learn how to make my mother's (his great-grandmother's) toffee recipe, primarily because it's a key ingredient in our family favorite version of Death By Chocolate.

I'm pretty sure this recipe would also be a favorite of Aunt Eva, a main character in my Brie Hooker Mystery series, since it includes large quantities of her favorite food group--dairy. In this case, the dairy comes in the form of butter. Here's the seemingly simple recipe, since it only has four ingredients:

Two sticks of Butter (plus a pat of butter to grease a nonstick cookie sheet)
1 cup tightly packed light brown sugar
4 Hershey Milk Chocolate bars (1,55 oz bars)
Finely chopped pecans

There are three prep steps before you start cooking.

1. Grease the nonstick cookie sheet (you'll be glad you did later when it's time to lift the toffee off the sheet). 
2. Finely chop the pecans so they'll be ready when you need them. I never measure but I'm guessing 3/4 cup.
3. Open all four Hersey bars and separate the individual squares so they're ready for later use.

Okay, now comes the tricky part, the cooking. Put the two sticks of butter and the light brown sugar in a heavy skillet on a stove burner set to medium heat. Stir CONSTANTLY. When the mixture is nicely mixed and is starting to get hot, you may want to set a timer for 10 minutes. That's about how much longer you'll need to keep stirring the mixture as it bubbles and starts pulling away from the sides of the pan. The trick is to make sure it does pull away from the pan's edges but doesn't burn.

At the end of your stirring vigil, you'll pour the toffee mixture onto your prepared cookie sheet in two ribbons. Now wait about 1 minute and then start placing the individual Hershey squares on the toffee. By the time you have them all on, the first squares you place will have melted enough to spread with a butter knife. Once the chocolate is evenly spread over the entire toffee surface sprinkle the top with the pecans.

Next, put the cookie sheet on a rack to cool. If you put it in the ice box immediately, it increases the risk that the chocolate layer will separate from the bottom toffee layer. But do put the tray in the fridge when it's cool to the touch. After an hour or two in the refrigerator, it will probably be fine to separate it from the cookie sheet with a spatula and then break it into pieces, which you'll need to keep stored in the refrigerator until they're gone (maybe the end of the day).