Another family favorite for Christmas is Almond Roca or Toffee. It is so good and pretty easy to make. This is my mom's recipe and it is best made in a nice heavy, cast iron pot. I inherited mine from my Grandma. Every year we would make trays of yummy cheese balls and candies to take to friends and relatives around town. This was always something we put on the trays. My mom learned to make this as a young woman and taught us to make it at a young age so that none of us ever use a recipe anymore.
Almond Roca
1 cup real butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds ( or any other nut)
1/2 large chocolate bar (milk, semi-sweet or dark, it doesn't matter)
more chopped almonds for the top
Cook the butter and sugar in a heavy pot on medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook to the hard ball stage either using a thermometer or when dropped into cold water. To see the cold water method, ready to the end. Remove from heat. Stir in chopped nuts. Pour immediately onto a lightly buttered cookie sheet. Set chocolate square on top of hot candy once it is partially set. once it melts, spread it across all of the candy and then sprinkle the remaining chopped nuts on the top. Let cool and let chocolate solidify again and then break into pieces to serve.
This is what it looks like as it begins to cook.
It will slowly begin to brown.
You can see it slowly moves toward a caramel color.
This is almost there and you might be tempted to stop here, but keep going.
This is right. you can see around the edges that it is really caramelizing.
Turn off the heat and add the chopped nuts. When I made this I only had sliced almonds so I just went with it.
After you spread the candy on a baking sheet, put the chocolate on it and let it melt.
Then spread the chocolate across the top of the candy
And sprinkle it with more chopped nuts (again I had slices almonds, so...)
That's it! Break it up when you are ready to serve it and it has cool enough so the chocolate has set.
Here is a great chart for testing candy "doneness" without a candy thermometer from
The Spruce Eats
