Compartes' World Famous English Toffee

Just down the street from me, nestled in Brentwood, is Compartes Chocolatier, run by 28-year-old Chocolate Mogul, Jonathan Grahm. Not only is his chocolate stunning but also delicious - it isn't often that you find pretty chocolate that actually tastes as lovely as it looks! This is his English Toffee recipe that he shared with Oprah and now I am going to share it with you. It is the absolute BEST english toffee I've ever had. 

Compartes' World Famous English Toffee

makes 2 pounds 

Ingredients 

1 pound Unsalted Butter (preferably Plugra)

1 cup White Sugar 

1 cup Brown Sugar (I used half light and half dark)

1 Tbsp Light Corn Syrup

2 cups chopped raw almonds (I used half raw skin-on almonds & half marcona almonds)

2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean (scraped or split)

1 tsp kosher salt 

Fleur de Sel, for finishing (I used Maldon Flake Salt)

Melted Chocolate, for dipping (I used bittersweet chocolate)

Method

1. Grease a baking sheet tray with butter. Set aside. 

2. Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed pot on the stove top. In a separate bowl, mix together sugars and corn syrup and add to the melted butter with 1/4 cup of water. Cook mixture on medium-heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until it reaches 240 degrees F (you will need a candy thermometer for this!). Never stop stirring - you don't want it to burn. At 240 F, add your almonds, lower the heat and continue cooking until the mixture reaches 300 F.  It should take about 15-20 to reach that final temp of 300 F.  Turn off heat. The mixture should be beautiful, bubbly, and golden brown. 

3. Add vanilla extract (or fish out vanilla bean!) immediately. Pour mixture onto greased sheet tray and spread out to about 1/4 inch thick. Let cool completely. 

4. After toffee is completely cooled, you can break it up into pieces 

and line them up on a cooling rack (placed over a sheet tray) so that you can pour tempered chocolate over them.

 Working quickly you can top the chocolate with ground almonds ( I used a mixture of skin-on raw almonds and salty marconas). I only dipped one side in chocolate but you could do both if you prefer. 

This toffee keeps very well in an airtight container in the fridge.