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This doesn’t look too fancy. And I wasn’t actually expecting very much from it.

serving-toffee

How much can you get from butter, sugar, and breakfast cereal?

Cheerios Toffee
Ingredients
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup butter or margarine
  • 2 1/2 cups Cheerios
Instructions
  1. In large skillet, heat 1 cup sugar and 1 cup butter or margarine to boiling, stirring constantly.
  2. Boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture becomes light brown and thickened, 8 to 10 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat; stir in 2 1/2 cups Cheerios cereal until well coated. Turn onto ungreased baking sheet; spread mixture 1/4 inch thick.
  4. Cool; break into pieces.
3.2.1303

 
recipe-cheeriostoffee

The youngest “kitchen assistant” was quite excited to see one of the ingredients come out of the cupboard.

“CHERRIES!”

“Cheerios.”

“CHERRY!”

“Cheerios.”

“CHERRIES! SO!”

“… Sure, ok.”

sugar

At first everything cooked along quite nicely. Butter melted, sugar stirred in, everything combining nicely.

stirring

Then this strange phase transition happened after about seven minutes: the butter started to separate back out.

“Does this look right?”

“I don’t know, what are you making?”

“Toffee. This looks like mashed potatoes or something.”

pouring

Despite the misgivings, I poured it over the Cheerios and stirred. It felt like there was too much cereal, and I worried it wasn’t getting fully distributed.

spreading

I tasted it while it was still fairly hot (burning my tongue), and immediately called Buzz into the kitchen. “Dude, you have to taste this.”

He took a bite too. “Oh, wow. That isn’t mashed potatoes.”

And somehow the entire sheet of crunchy toffee started vanishing before I belatedly realized I’d completely failed to take a tasting photo.

tasting

“Quick, smile. I need to get a picture.”

“OK, but shoot fast, I want to eat more of this.”

This is insanely delicious. Duh, right? It’s pure butter and sugar.

Verdict: Insanely delicious.

Tasting notes:

Pure butter and sugar with crunchy bits, this is perfect candy. It is definitely important to cook this long enough — until the sugar-butter mix begins to turn beige instead of lemon yellow. I made it a second time and didn’t cook quite as long, and the result was less crunchy and hard. (Still tasty, just a different texture.)

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