Toffee Bars

Diwali is not only festival of lights but also festival of joy and happiness, we have tradition of making sweets and savory not only for family members but also for friends and relatives. My friends wait for festivals as they know that they would get some treats from my place and expectations are also very high from me to produce something new and innovative from my kitchen. This Diwali was the most busy one for me, had so many projects running simultaneously  and  had loads of sweets to prepare. While we were in India it was easy to prepare as my cousins and friends would gather at my place and we used to make for all. But here in Lagos the custom is very much different, people give order to shops and done, for me this trend is strictly no no... I like to homemade ones and as being called as Chef of the group they were expecting much different from the store bought. As many of the colleagues have kid's so they demanded something kid's friendly sweet, and also wanted something for my first ever post for Blogging Marathon under the theme of Kid's Delight - Diwali treat, after starching and  breaking my head I thought of making this Shortbread Toffee Bar, i knew the recipe but had to browse and good recipe on About.com. made some modifications and came out with this lovely recipe of Toffee Bar

Toffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses or condense milk along with butter and occasionally flour or powdered nuts. The mixture is cooked till it reaches the required temp i.e. soft ball i.e. at 235 - 245 c temp for chewy and hard ball consistency i.e. at 250 - 266 c temp for hard toffee. 

Preparation time: 15 mins

Cooking time : 40 mins

Difficulty level : Medium

Yeilds : 8 bars of 4"x 1"

Ingredients For Short bread:

• 2 oz / 56 gms/ 1/2 stick / 3 tbsp  butter, softened
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup self-rising flour

Ingredients For Toffee:

• 2 oz / 56 gms / 1/2 stick / 3 tbsp butter
• 5 oz / 140 gms / 9.5 tbsp Condense milk
• 1/4 cup cashew chikki crumbs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Ingredients For Chocolate Layer:

• 2 oz / 56 gms /  sweet chocolate
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 tbsp milk

Method for Shortbread : 

• Grind sugar to fine powder. 
• In a bowl cream butter and powdered sugar till light and fluffy. Fold in flour.
• Spread the mix into bread loaf pan (8.5 x 4" pan) lined with butter paper.
• Bake for 20 mins in preheated oven for about 20 mins, until firm and lightly browned around the edges.
• Remove the pan and cool on wire rack.

Method for Toffee:

• In a nonstick small sauce pan (8") add butter, cashew chikki crumble and condensed milk.
• Cook the mixture on medium heat till it changes colour to golden brown, until mixture starts to leave the sides of a pan. Add Vanilla essence and stir well.

For Chocolate layer:

• Melt chocolate with butter and milk in microwave on high for 1 min, stir after 30 sec.

For assembling of Toffee Bar:

• Pour the toffee mixture on top of the shortbread, tap the pan to spread evenly.
• After the toffee layer is completely cooled, pour the melted chocolate.
• Allow to cool and cut into bars with sharp knife.

Tips:

• If you do not have microwave, melt chocolate on double boiler i.e. place one bowl over the pan of hot water and melt the chocolate. Ensure that the water should not touch the bowl or else you will end up with burnt chocolate.
• Cooking time in microwave varies it is always better to stir chocolate at 30 seconds, if not melted then cook for more 30 seconds.
• If you do not have self - rising flour make you own - recipe here.
• You can use margarine instead of butter.
• If you are making for adults you can use bitter dark chocolate i.e. 70 to 80% chocolate instead of sweet chocolate. 

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#34