Coffee Toffee

This coffee toffee recipe will change your life. Diane would like to apologize in advance for anything I am about to say. She says I’m a coffee snob. I don’t know whether to respond with a “Duh!” or a “Phbbttt!”- or however you spell sticking your tongue out. After all, she did first meet me in a coffee house back in 1995.

Snob may not be the right word. I mean, I do love my coffee but I’m still polite about it in public. I’m not going to lambast someone for their personal choice in caffeinated beverage. When traveling I’ll drink what’s offered without a cringe or frown. Yes, even the cheap motel coffee. However, when it comes to what I make for myself, I am … particular.

Good Espresso for Coffee Toffee Recipe

After all, this is a ritual which begins nearly everyday. It should be beautiful. Indifference to its quality is akin to not caring about the morning sunrise. Without seeing it, we probably wouldn’t even think twice about how it looked or made us feel. But if we stretch our toes out of bed and take in the morning sun, its beauty lightens the soul and changes the approach to the day.

So, for me, I make it important for I find comfort in it. Going out of my way to buy from the coffee roaster I like the best, and always seeking and experimenting with other potentially delicious beans from other coffee craftsmen. We finally invested in the espresso machine I’ve been dreamy eyed over for over a decade, a manual press La Pavoni espresso machine.

Alluring, classic, simplistic yet difficult to master unless you pay attention to the details. And it makes a beautiful espresso. This is a machine created for loving ritual.

So flipping through Deb’s (of Smitten Kitchen fame) book, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, and I came across her coffee toffee recipe I had to pause. Coffee in a delicious toffee, this had to be good.

As she rhapsodized about her near addiction to the little black beverage and translated those urges into baked goods, I knew I had to make this recipe.

It’s her first cookbook and will have you busy cooking throughout the year with seasonal recipes as well. And as always, Deb’s witty, funny and personal writing keeps you engaged with every recipe that she brilliantly pens.

Toffee Recipe for Coffee Lovers

After running through the ingredients for her coffee toffee, I notice she calls for instant espresso powder. Um, that is something we normally don’t have on hand.

So I went to work on Deb’s recipe, changing out the espresso powder for a true espresso shot, used our preferred dark chocolate to top it, and went with her first choice of topping the toffee with hazelnuts (she mentions you can use another nut of your choice but the initial call for hazelnuts seemed divinely perfect). The end result was, as Deb put it “…grown-up toffee; … If a piece of candy could ever taste like a cup of coffee, this would be it.” Absolutely marvelous.