Toffee! Just in time for Valentine's Day!!

(Scroll to the bottom for an update on Target's home clearance!!)

I'm cutting it close, but I thought I'd share how I make toffee.  Its a great treat to make for Valentine's Day and the great thing about toffee is that you probably have all the ingredients on hand already. 

The thing about toffee though is that there are a few tricks to get it to come out right.  Some of the common complaints about making toffee are that it never gets hard and stays kinda ...bendy.  Another is that it burns easily.  And another is that the butter separates and "pools" on top.

So, like I said before, I love to research this stuff, so I came up with a few tricks to help you make sure yours comes out just right!

You will need:

• A working candy thermometer.  I say WORKING because I had one that was not working properly and that was no good.  How do you tell if your candy thermometer is working?  Boil water in a pot with your candy thermometer inserted.  The thermometer should read 212 degrees F (100 degrees C).  I ended up buying a new one:

• A medium sized, heavy bottomed saucepan.  The heavy bottom (and also cooking at medium heat) will help prevent the toffee from burning while it is cooking on the stove.
• A large rimmed cookie sheet or jelly roll pan, lined with foil
• An offset spatula.  A knife or other type of spatula will work ok too.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup finely chopped, lightly toasted almonds (I omitted these due to my family's preferences)

In the saucepan, combine the butter, sugar and salt. 

 Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the butter has melted. 

 Place candy thermometer in pan.  Continue stirring until the mixture comes to a boil, then stop stirring constantly.

  Continue to cook until the temperature on the candy thermometer reaches 300 degrees F (149 degrees C), stirring only occasionally. 

(At 300 degrees F)

A better shot of what the mixture will look like.

As soon as the toffee reaches 300 degrees F, pour it out onto your prepared pan.  Then sprinkle your chocolate over the top of it and let it sit for a few minutes.

Then, using your spatula or knife, spread the chocolate evenly over the top of the toffee.

If desired, sprinkle nuts evenly over the chocolate.  I love it with almonds, but no one else in this house does and since I do not need to eat ALL this myself, I skipped this step. 

(I sprinkled mine with coarse sugar sprinkles)

Place toffee in the refrigerator until slightly set and then, to help ensure even, pretty cuts, lightly score your toffee with a serrated knife, cleaning it after each cut.  Put the toffee back in the refrigerator until completely set and break into pieces.  Because of the scoring, it should break pretty cleanly.

Enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I posted last week about Target clearancing a bunch of home items right now.  They usually do markdowns on Thursday and I went there yesterday to see what new markdowns they had.  There was quite a bit at 75%!

Some examples (taken with my cell, so excuse the quality):

Shower curtains @ $3.74

These were $6.48

This organization  center was $12 (originally $50)



This duvet was $22 (originally $80)  They had a few different styles by Thomas O'Brien:

I was so tempted to buy this, but I has the reverse colors of this (white with a dark pattern) in my master and didn't want to have too much of the same color in my guest bedroom.  I'm still thinking about buying it so I can change things up in my master for the winter though since the white is more summer like.  We'll see.

This is what I did buy:

A 2 pack of shelves for $3.74 that I plan to paint:

And two curtain rods for $5.48 each in silver that I plan to use in my master when I redecorate it (soon, I hope).  They look like this:

Of course, the selection varies from store to store, but Target usually has the same clearance schedule throughout the country so its worth a look see.  If you go, I'd love to hear what you see and/or get!

I'm joining the party here: