Grandma's Recipe

English Toffee Candy

Recipe from Grandma Castleton

I loved this candy.  Too bad I never asked Grandma to show me how to make it.  Grandma brought dress boxes full of lines and lines of cookies, ice cream buckets full of toffee and peanut brittle.  We loved “Grandma cookies” better than anything.  Once she came with no cookies, and said she’d bake them with us.  “But we like Grandma cookies,” we cried.  “If you bake them here, they’re just cookies.”

1 c. butter

1 c. sugar

1 Tbsp corn syrup

3 Tbsp water

I used to walk to the corner store and buy penny candy with my brother.  Grandma would watch us out of her third floor window.  I liked the candy cigarettes that blew clouds of powdered sugar, but Mom never let me have them.  Grandma did, though, and she never told on me.  By the time the corner store closed, we were old enough to walk to the tiny store around the corner, and Grandma didn’t have to watch us anymore.

Cook, stirring constantly until candy reaches 290 degrees.  Pour over chopped pecans on buttered cookie sheet.

I called my cousin for the recipe, and we talked for an hour.  We once spend all day at Bear Lake, then slept at Grandma’s.  We were so sun-burned it hurt to move.  Grandma’s sheets never felt so rough.  Grandma came downstairs in the middle of the night bringing oatmeal lotion to rub on our backs.  How she knew we were too sore to sleep we never did guess.

Sprinkle with chocolate chips, let them melt.  When melted, spread with the back of a spoon to cover candy.  Sprinkle with more chopped pecans.  When cool, break into pieces and eat.