Martha Stewart Madness Takes Over!

Last week I bought the December issue of Martha Stewart Living Magazine because I love the food photography in it. (Honest! I don't even read the articles! Much. . .) Well, I got completely excited by the idea of making the Fleur de Sel toffee that purports itself to be so easy, and it was. I documented the process from cooking to packaging it up as gifts. Read on. . .

First I sprayed a cookie sheet with vegetable oil. Then I mixed one pound (yes, that's FOUR whole sticks, folks!) of butter, 2 2/3 cups of sugar, 1/3 cup of water and 1/4 cup of light corn syrup in the largish pan you see below and let it all melt over medium high heat. I whisked it until it looked like this:Jon was excited to try some. Toffee is his favorite candy:

Once it came to a boil, the recipe said I had to wait at least 12 minutes, (although it ended up being something more like 22 minutes) until the candy thermometer read 300 degrees and it was nice and toffee-colored, like this:
Next, I had to pour it into the cookie sheet, where I let it sit for 30 seconds and then sprinkled it with kosher salt for that sweet-n-salty goodness. Then it had to sit for 30 minutes before I could break it up.After it cooled, I was able to break it up with a little hammer into thousands of tiny pieces (boy, does it taste delicious! I ate enough to make my teeth ache. . . No, seriously!)

And then I boxed it up in little petal boxes I'd made and hand-stamped while it was cooling (you see what I mean about the Martha Stewart Madness thing now? I'll might just go out and stencil the driveway next--watch out world!) That's all for today, folks! Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight! Cheers, Martha--uh, I mean, Cindy!