After clearing out some space in my mum's cupboard
for her new vase I came across an old mothers day cookbook my year 5 teacher
made us create as a class. The idea behind the book being that each student
would find their favourite recipe and hand write it onto a pre-decorated A4 piece
of paper provided by the teacher. It would then be scanned and printed out 30 times in
order to create the pages for our cookbooks with each child receiving one copy
of each recipe.
After flicking past recipes for vegetarian lasagnas containing
50% mince and rather large green dinosaur cupcakes I came across this recipe for fete
toffees. The idea to marble them came later on in the cooking process after
deciding they needed a little more pizzaz beyond the traditional hundreds and thousands (for which I have never been much of a fan).
I confess, I did burn my first batch though, so make sure
you keep an eye on it!
Best to aim for a light champagne tint rather than
golden brown with this recipe.
You will need:
- 2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cups cold water
- 1 Tbsp white vinegar
- Food dye of your choice
- Tooth picks
- Toffee mould (I went with mini cupcake patties this time, but I'm interested in seeing how silicone chocolate moulds hold up)
- Saucepan
- Metal spoon
- Pastry brush
- Small glass of water
Method:
- Place all ingredients into a saucepan and stir over heat until sugar has dissolved.
- Using a wet pastry brush wipe down the sides of the saucepan to remove any sugar crystals.
- Bring to a boil - do not stir.
- After around 2 minutes the toffee should have reached 'cracking point'. You can test this by placing a small drop of the toffee mixture into a glass of cold water (NOTE: The mixture is extremely hot so avoid all contact with skin) If the toffee turns hard and clumps together (much like pillow lava) than it's ready. However if it still appears gooey or stringy allow the mixture to boil for a few seconds longer before retrying this method.
- Once ready remove from heat. Allow bubbles to subside before spooning into patty cases. [NOTE: At this point you may create a marbled effect by dropping a single drop of food dye on top of the toffee directly after pouring into moulds. Using a toothpick gently swirl the dye around to create your desired image before covering with a final scoop of toffee mixture. You can also experiment with multiple colours, placing a new spoon full of toffee between each layer of food dye in order to prevent colours from becoming murky]
- Allow to cool before consuming.
Enjoy xx
