SMS: Butter Toffee Crunch

This week the Sweet Melissa Sundays group made its second attempt at candy-making with Butter Toffee Crunch. I had initially planned on making a quarter recipe, as the original yields three pounds and it’s a little early to be making Christmas gifts. However, I ended up making three quarters of a recipe, in three different batches, because my first two failed! I have groused about making caramel before, and though I am starting to get a little better at making candy, things just didn’t work out for me yesterday. The first batch burned (I could smell it before the candy thermometer was close to the requisite 280 degrees), and then I took the second batch off too soon in fear of it scorching. The third and final batch might have been a little underdone as well, but after three attempts I was calling it a day. My mom is a first grade teacher and at Christmas time she always receives lots of gifts from students, including candy. I remember one year there was some highly addictive toffee; the final product reminds me of that toffee and it is actually disappearing pretty fast.



This recipe rated an 8 for Deliciousness and a 3.5 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 2.28. Many thanks to Kaitlin of Kait’s Plate for challenging me in the kitchen this weekend. Like me, Kait also participates in Tuesdays With Dorie, but I wasn’t acquainted with her blog until Sweet Melissa Sundays started and I really enjoy it! You can find the recipe here on Kait’s site and see how the other bakers fared by visiting the SMS blogroll.



I made another delicious chocolate/brown sugar concoction this weekend, and since there is very little chance I will get around to actually writing a full post about it, I thought I’d mention it now. I was browsing through my reader on Friday evening and I saw Thomas Keller’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, from the new Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, on Pink Stripes. I took Wendy’s advice and made the cookies that night! These I don’t know if they surpass the New York Times recipe as my favorite, since it’s been a while (too long) since I’ve made those, but these are excellent cookies! My cookies did not spread as much as I thought they should, so I'm not sure where I went wrong in that regard. They turned out crisp on the outside and soft in the center, almost as if they contain a gooey chocolate filling rather than chips. It had been a while since I’d used molasses sugar, and I’d forgotten what a wonderful depth of flavor it adds to cookies. Unlike the NYT cookies, they do not require a rest in the refrigerator, so you get instant CCC gratification – awesome! I did refrigerate some and bake them today, though, and I think those ones turned out exceptionally good. These cookies scored a 9.5 for Deliciousness and a 2 for Effort, giving them an EDR of 4.75. You can find the recipe here, and I definitely encourage anyone craving chocolate chips cookies to make them.