Grandma Sandi’s English Toffee - The Superhero Family

Grandma Sandi was known for her English Toffee and I think everyone looked forward to Christmastime because they knew if she would be around, her English Toffee would most likely be with her.

If you haven’t heard of Grandma Sandi, or Sandra Lee (not the famous baker that you see her products in the store, but the famous baker that if you knew her, you knew you were loved, and that you were special, and that if you had a birthday, she would be sure to bake your favorite treat with lots of love) then let me share a little about her. She loved everyone and never met a stranger, and most importantly she loved the Lord and loved sharing about Him.

She only birthed one child, my husband, but she loved on everyone like they were her own kids. Her dream was to be a Grandma, and with my hubby getting a late start on marriage, meant she was waiting for a while. We (my hubby and I) finally met in October 2010, were engaged in July 2011, were married in May 2012, and had our first baby in March 2013. My Mother-in-love, Sandi, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer 7 weeks before our wedding, and participated in a clinical trial. She lost her hair the week of our wedding, but was blessed to find a salt and pepper wig that looked like her own hair, except shorter, so people just thought she had gotten a new haircut at our wedding. She also developed not only Bells Palsy, but bilateral Bells Palsy while she was battling her cancer. She was working at Jenny Craig still, but it was difficult for her to speak to customers like she used to because it impaired her speech, but she still tried her best. She was on disability at times, and one of those times she came out to our place to visit her new Grandbaby, Victoria (who was born 4 weeks early due to HELLP Syndrome). While she was visiting, my hubby had this amazing idea to record his mom cooking some of her famous recipes so we could share them with the kids. One of those recipes was her English Toffee. While it didn’t actually turn out that day (I think we only had unsalted butter in the house…) we are glad to have the memories to hear step by step how to do it, and we also have her handwritten paper copy so we could try to recreate it.

We tried once or twice before, and once it didn’t harden, and another time we cookied it a little too much…. (I don’t remember if we tried both with the same batch… or if it was 2 different attempts). But… this year I decided to try it again… and it finally worked!

Interestingly enough… I decided to try to make her Toffee, having no idea that The Chargers were playing football that evening. My hubby had left to exchange the artificial Christmas tree that we had bought that night, because only the bottom two sections lit up, but not the top section.

When he got home from picking up the new tree, and was watching a commentary of the game on YouTube, we got the new tree lit up in all three sections, and I got Grandma Sandi’s English Toffee to finally work… then The Chargers won! So… we definitely had some excitement that night in our house.

So, here is Grandma Sandi making her English Toffee…

And here is her recipe:

And here is our batch that finally worked.

Next time, I’ll put the butter in and let it start melting before I add the sugar…

I had added the sliced almonds here…

Keep stirring

Add broken pieces of chocolate across the top, after you have poured out and spread around your toffee, then put anotger jelly roll pan on top to keep the heat in to melt the chocolate 🍫 I had just bought those Hershey Bars with almonds from the grocery store the day before… I don’t know why they had already turned white on the corners 🤦‍♀️

Use a spatula to spread the melted chocolate (I used 1/2 lb, my hubby said I should use more next time) then put the other pan back on and put it in the fridge. I left it overnight.