Oh. My. YUM! Toffee!!!

Confession time. Candy thermometers scare me! Why? I don't know but anything that requires one just seems so hard. I mean it's a tool like many others in my kitchen. I have gadgets. I've asked for things as gifts that Mr. Chocolate swears I've made up until he goes to the store to ask for them and they're real. But I've always wanted to make the kinds of delectable candies you see this time of year that require this frightening tool and so I clip recipes and tuck them away. Like toffee for example.

Enter Jacqueline from her absolutely stunning and elegant blog Purple Chocolat Home who posted yesterday about a friend's family toffee recipe that DOESN'T REQUIRE A CANDY THERMOMETER! ( Caps to indicate my total giddiness...not shouting at you). And like the title of this post says: Oh. My. YUM! I just had to try this last night because, well, I did.  And if you're like me and hide in the corner at the thought of having to use a candy thermometer, come on out of the dark and try this recipe!  

Grandma Utahna's Tofee

I'm not going to post the recipe here  so you'll just have to go on over to get it ( and you'll stay and look around I promise you because she is AMAZING) . I didn't take step by step pics because I didn't want any evidece of failure. I watch CSI...no evidence, no failure! But I am pleased to say it worked just like the recipe said and I didn't mess it up!

Here it is all ready for cooling:

Do you know how hard it was not to stick my face in this?

I'm out of parchment paper so I used waxed paper which worked in a pinch but I think I'd rather use parchment paper. "Grandma's" recipe called for pecans but I didn't have those so used almonds. Here's the final product:

A little goes a long way so I cut these into smaller pieces

And most important of all....it earned the Mr. Chocolate double thumbs up seal of approval :)