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Mrs Jackson's Toffee

When I was a kid I lived next door to an elderly couple whose son had died, as a child, during the war years.  Mr & Mrs Jackson sort of adopted all the local children and were always there if your parents were out.  Amongst lots of other memories I recall a pet Thrush they had called Henrietta, who lived in the garden and would come into the living room to eat bread and butter (she wouldn't eat it unless it had butter on!).

Mrs Jackson used to make toffee for all of the children and this is her recipe.

Ingredients
8oz Butter
8oz Soft Brown Sugar
4 tablespoons Golden Syrup
1 large tin Condensed Milk

Take a large, high walled pan and gently melt the butter, sugar and syrup - stirring until all the sugar is dissolved and the syrup and butter are well blended.

Take the pan off the heat to stir in the condensed milk, blend it all together so that it is a uniform colour and consistency.  Return the pan to the heat and turn the heat up - boil the toffee mix for about 15 minutes (without burning it on the bottom of the pan - best to use a heavy bottomed pan for an even distribution of heat).

I am sure that there are optimum temperatures and settings you can use with a jam thermometer but I don't know them and I have always done it this way.  So after about 12 minutes of the 15 minutes - drop a small drop of the toffee into a cup of cold water (it doesn't need to be iced - just out the cold tap is fine) - leave it a couple of seconds and then scoop it out and try it.  If it is hard/chewy enough then your toffee is ready - if it is still a bit soft keep boiling and testing.  You will get the hang of it.

Once you are satisfied with the toffee pour it into a baking tin that has a decent wall height, maybe an inch or so.  If you can get hold of some foil trays they are perfect - easy to get the toffee out later too.  Score the top of your toffee, into squares, with a sharp knife as the toffee cools.