How To Make The Best Homemade English Toffee Recipe

English Toffee is a classic holiday recipe – crunchy, chocolatey, and delicious. This delicious toffee is the perfect combination with a crunchy buttery homemade toffee, melted milk chocolate, and chopped pecans.

Best Homemade English Toffee Recipe (Buttery Toffee)

Homemade toffee is one of my favorite holiday recipes! It doesn’t get more classic during the holiday season than making a batch of this easy English toffee recipe. 

The cooking process is actually quite simple, with simple being ingredients, and it’s then layered into one pan. 

Homemade English toffee tastes like a heath bar – that buttery toffee mixed with melted chocolate is just divine. If you love that heath candy bar flavor be sure and also make my No Bake Heath Toffee Cheesecake Pie. 

This is a great recipe to make for an edible treat gift for neighbors, family, and friends. It looks so pretty in a clear bag with Christmas ribbon tied at the top. So let’s get baking and learn how to make homemade toffee❤︎

How To Make Classic English Toffee

Line a 9×13 baking pan with parchment paper, and set aside. 

In a large saucepan, over medium-low heat, add the butter, granulated sugar, water, vanilla extract, and salt. Let it cook for a few minutes, while stirring occasionally, until the butter has completely melted. 

Once the butter is melted, increase the heat to medium-high heat and continue cooking, while stirring continuously. Cook and stir until the color turns to amber and the temperature reaches 300 degreed F (use a candy thermometer to check it). Do not allow the bottom to burn! It’s important to continuously stir it to avoid this. 

Once it reaches temperature, remove it from the heat and immediately pour the toffee mixture into the prepared baking pan. Carefully spread it into the corners and make sure it’s in an even layer. Let it sit for 2 minutes. 

Sprinkle the milk chocolate chips on top of the toffee. Allow the chips to sit and melt for 3 minutes, and then use an icing spatula or other spatula to spread the melted chocolate evenly over the toffee. 

Sprinkle the chopped pecans over top the chocolate. 

Place the pan in the fridge and allow it to chill for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Once completely cooled, break it into pieces, serve & enjoy!

Substitutions & Ingredient Notes

• Butter : Salted butter can be used instead of unsalted butter. It won’t make that much of a difference using either butter. I usually bake with salted butter so I have made this toffee using both kinds of butter. 
• Milk Chocolate Chips : For a different flavor try using semi-sweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips. I also highly recommend using high-quality chocolate chips. I love the Ghirardelli brand or Guittard brand of milk chocolate chips. 
• Pecans : You can use any chopped nut you prefer such as walnuts, macadamia nuts, almonds, or omit the nuts entirely if there is an allergy. Instead you can use Christmas colored sprinkles or other small chopped candy or chocolate. 

Pro Tips From The Test Kitchen

• If you want a thinner toffee use a 10×15 baking sheet instead; also called a jelly roll pan. The thicker toffee, as pictured, was made in a 9×13 baking pan so it turns out with a thicker layer of toffee. Sometimes you can also find a 9×13 cookie sheet pan and that can be used as well. 
• The most important thing is to stay close to your saucepan! You must stir continuously, with a wooden spoon, or heat-resistant spoon or spatula, once the heat is increased to prevent the toffee mixture from burning. Make sure you are constantly stirring it while checking the temperature. 
• Once it reaches the correct temperature it’s important to immediately take it off the heat. 
• The hot molten toffee mixture is very hot so please be careful when pouring it into the pan and stirring it. 
• Be sure and line the pan with parchment paper so the toffee easily lifts out of the pan.
• Follow the stove top heat instructions carefully – keep the heat at low-medium/medium-high and don’t try to increase the heat to speed up the process.