Lemon Meringue Toffee

I’ve been working on this recipe for a while.  Toffee can be difficult to perfect but with a few quick tricks this doesn’t take long to make up.  For these lemon meringue toffees less is more.

Last week I made meringue and I wasn’t all that careful lifting it from the tray which resulted in a few broken pieces.  I love food, hate waste so I had popped the crumbled bits into an airtight container until I figured out what to do with them.

It has been a busy week, more of which will follow in subsequent blogposts but suffice to say I have been testing and tweaking this recipe around for a while.  You’d think at this stage that my family would love my recipes but when it comes to sweet treats and baking my attempts are often greeted with groans, especially if it’s a new recipe.

A few months ago we ate lemon cupcakes everyday for 2 weeks while I worked around the measurements and flavour balances.  Testing and retesting does pay off because it normally results in a recipe that works again and again. My brother in law arrived down today and thankfully tested the toffee for me.  His teeth are suitably stuck together after chomping on the toffee and as he’d not tasted my earlier tries I got off scot free without any moans!

Toffee can be a difficult thing to do and I would recommend that you don’t do this with small children in the kitchen.  Hot sugar is dangerous and you could do without the distractions.

There’s no need to use a thermometer when making this toffee.  Have an ice cold glass of water and a metal spoon on the side.  More on that later.

Ingredients

• 75ml Water
• 100g White Sugar
• 75ml Golden Syrup
• 50g Butter (for this recipe I use salted as it aids the flavour balance but unsalted is fine too)
• 1 Lemon
• Crushed Meringue

Equipment

• Strong bottomed stainless steel saucepan
• Stainless steel whisk
• Grater
• Sharp Knife
• Metal teaspoon
• Glass of Ice Cold Water
• Baking Paper (greaseproof)
• Heatproof baking tray

Method

1. Take the saucepan and put it on a medium heat on the hob.
2. Put the water in first, then the golden syrup, sugar and butter.
3. Melt all the ingredients together until they reach a boiling point.
4. Whisk until the mixture turns gold.
5. Zest the rind of 1 lemon into the mixture.
6. Cut the lemon in half and juice half the lemon into the mixture.
7. The toffee mixture will bubble, keep on mixing with the whisk.
8. Line a heatproof baking tray with greaseproof baking paper.
9. When the mixture turns caramel in colour remove the saucepan from the heat.
10. Take a small amount of the toffee with the metal spoon and drop it into the cold glass of water.
11. If the toffee stays in a drop at the bottom of the glass for longer than a minute then pour the toffee mixture straight onto some greaseproof baking paper on top of a heatproof tray.
12. If not return the saucepan to the heat, continuously whisking for a further 3 minutes and repeat steps 9-10 above.
13. Continue these steps until you get the dropping consistency.
14. Don’t be afraid to empty the glass and refill with fresh water if you find it gets cloudy when you’re trying to get the right drop!
15. Once you pour the toffee onto the baking parchment, sprinkle with crumbled meringue.
16. Leave the toffee to cool completely before breaking and serving.
17. Or break the toffee and portion into gift bags.