Sort of kind of toffee. Maybe.

I've started to take goodies almost every week we go over for games, and last week I got it into my head to once again do battle with my ancient nemesis: Sugar cookery. I have a long list of failures cooking sugar behind me. With that in mind, I resolved to try again even if it would mean having to clean up a big pot of black sugar once more.

At least to me, one of the most straightforward things to do with cooked sugar is make butter toffee. You basically take a lot of butter and some sugar, pour it in a pot, cook it to the appropriate temperature, then spread it on a silicone mat and let it cool and harden. Do not let this seemingly easy chain of events fool you, however. Sugar seemingly gets very angry when cooked, and will fight back at every turn.

This is what a pound of melted butter looks like. Mmmmm.

A word about safety; Hot sugar is no joke. Especially as it gets up to the several hundred degrees required to form hard candies like brittle and toffee. If you happen to somehow drip some on yourself, or it bubbles out of the pot for some reason, your first instinct will likely be to put whatever body part now has boiling hot sugar syrup on it into your mouth. Resist this instinct fiercely if it occurs. This is a lot easier if you have remembered to set up a bowl of ice water beforehand. When you plunge even boiling sugar into ice water, it will harden almost instantly, turning it from sticky painful burning into minor swearing and a lump of sugar you can casually pull off.

Seriously. This will be your buddy.

Back to the task at hand. The one major failure I had in my series of events was using too high of a heat. Remember how I said sugar likes to fight you? Give it any excuse and you'll start smelling the horrible smell of very burnt sugar. Since I was using too high of a flame, my butter and sugar didn't get quite to the temperature called for in the recipe before the bottom began to burn. I evacuated the contents onto my waiting silicon mat and was punished for my hubris by only a thin black layer on the pot. Small payment for the goodies to come. Work quickly to spread it out after evacuation, as it will begin to set up as soon as it's off the fire. I used a long metal offset spatula.

The darker swirls are evidence of my punishment.

After it sets up you can either leave it as is, which is totally acceptable if you are only after the sweet buttery goodness, or you can melt some chocolate and pour it over your toffee and let that set up as well before breaking it into shards the size of your choosing. Often the shards will be of the toffee's choosing. Even after being thoroughly cooked, the sugar still has some fight left.

Reminds me of something I saw in an art gallery once.

If you are feeling adventurous you can choose to add nuts, candy bits, salt, spices, or other goodies to the melted chocolate before allowing it to harden. Traumatized as I was by the near disaster, I preferred the chocolate plain.

Next time: Panini Quesadillas with Fresh Tomato Salsa

Recipe used was from the Pioneer Woman website and can be found here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/12/lias-butter-toffee/