Here at Flaherty’s Irish Candy Co., one of the most frequent questions we get is: “What’s the difference between English toffee and Irish toffee?” It’s a fair question! There are many types of candy, both here in the U.S. and across the pond in the British Isles, referred to as toffee. In America, English toffee usually refers to a candy made with slow-cooked sugar and butter, forming a brittle, which is then coated in chocolate and nuts. Our Irish toffee follows the same basic principle, but with one key difference - the quality!
English Toffee with Irish Butter
Flaherty’s Irish toffee is made with real Irish butter. If you’ve ever tried a genuine Irish butter alongside simple margarine from the store, you understand the difference this makes. Irish butter is richer, more flavorful, and creamier, making for the best possible toffee. For our various toffee varieties, we combine Irish butter with other quality ingredients - real white, milk, and dark chocolate, fresh-toasted nuts, real vanilla, rich coffee, and more - to take the classic English toffee and make it better than ever. As a matter of fact, all our candies use real, quality ingredients, without any artificial flavors or preservatives. This makes them allergy-friendly (as our nut-free candies are clearly labeled), in addition to being simple and delicious.
Real Irish Toffee Recipe
Those simple, delicious flavors are the result of our Flaherty family recipes. Brought over from County Galway and County Cork, we’ve been hand-making our sweet Irish treats in copper kettles since 1947. The Flaherty family took a classic English toffee recipe and said what all of us are thinking when cooking: “This needs more butter!” As a result, our Irish toffee contains 50% pure Irish butter, as opposed to the 30% butter found in a typical English toffee. The result? A rich, flavorful, tender-crisp toffee that melts in your mouth! At shows, we often hear people say “Oh, I can’t eat toffee, I’ll break a tooth!” But Flaherty’s tender Irish toffee won’t chip your teeth or pull out your fillings - it’s rich, delicious, and easy to enjoy, thanks to our Irish butter.
Irish Toffee is English Toffee... But Better!
Which, of course, brings us back to the question that started it all. What is the difference between English toffee and Irish toffee? Well, Irish toffee is English toffee at its best. Better ingredients, family recipes, and more butter make for a toffee that’s simply a step above the rest! As we often say in the Flaherty family, if you’re lucky to be Irish, you’re lucky enough - and that applies to English toffee, too.
Flaherty's Irish toffee is made with real Irish butter. If you've ever tried a genuine Irish butter alongside simple margarine from the store, you understand the difference this makes. Irish butter is richer, more flavorful, and creamier, making for the best possible toffee.
Americanized toffee may include nuts, while a completely traditional British toffee will not. On the other hand, English toffee uses pure cane sugar, brown sugar, or molasses as its sweet base and always involves chocolate.
Toffees and caramels both contain butter and sugar in high quantities. If the toffee or caramel is not handled properly during the cooking process, the butter sometimes separates from the sugar and forms an oily layer on top of the candy.
Toffee is butterscotch that has been cooked for a longer period of time. Toffee begins as a base of butter and brown sugar that is gradually cooked to the hard-crack sugar stage between 295 and 309 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cooks in England first created English toffee recipes in the late 1890s. At first, they boiled sugar and butter together. In the early 1900s, cooks began adding almonds to the mixtures. This gave the candy its signature crunchy texture and nutty taste.
Some sources tell you that American toffee is a hard substance, synonymous with brittle; while British toffee is more the consistency of what we call taffy—a hard, chewy candy made of brown sugar or molasses and butter. Other sources say that British toffee is hard, and American toffee is softer recipe.
Toffee is a hard candy that combines the classic cooked sugar sweetness of caramel with the richness of butter. Technically, toffee is butterscotch—a combination of butter and sugar—cooked to what's known as the hard-crack stage in confectionery: over 300 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer.
The difference between regular toffee and English Toffee is one important ingredient – butter! I make English Toffee throughout the year for special occasions and it's always a big hit. I simply sprinkle on my favorite toppings to create several variations and my friends and family go crazy for this sweet treat!
It's important while the toffee cooks to only stir it occasionally. Constant stirring can cause the toffee to crystallize and separate. For those of you that need to know exactly how often you should stir, I would suggest erring on the side of not stirring more than stirring.
For maximum taste and texture, we do recommend that you either enjoy your toffee immediately, or store it in a refrigerator or freezer. Once opened, unrefrigerated product will retain maximum freshness for about a week. Refrigeration adds 3-6 months of shelf life, while freezing adds up to a year or more.
English toffee and peanut brittle are both candies made with butter and sugar, but there a significant differences. Toffee has a much higher proportion of butter than brittle and that is what gives it a more pliable texture than that of brittle.
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Those simple, delicious flavors are the result of our Flaherty family recipes. Brought over from County Galway and County Cork, we’ve been hand-making our sweet Irish treats in copper kettles since 1947. The Flaherty family took a classic English toffee recipe and said what all of us are thinking when cooking: “This needs more butter!” As a result, our Irish toffee contains 50% pure Irish butter, as opposed to the 30% butter found in a typical English toffee. The result? A rich, flavorful, tender-crisp toffee that melts in your mouth! At shows, we often hear people say “Oh, I can’t eat toffee, I’ll break a tooth!” But Flaherty’s tender Irish toffee won’t chip your teeth or pull out your fillings - it’s rich, delicious, and easy to enjoy, thanks to our Irish butter.