This is my little bit for holidays at home.

English toffee was the first christmas candy my mom made each year.  After we were done with all the Thanksgiving leftovers, she would make a huge batch and stick it all in the freezer. And I would spend the entire month of December sneaking pieces of it thinking no one would notice. I think probably half was gone by the time Christmas rolled around! So now I make english toffee every year for Christmas and though I still eat my fair share I try to give most of it away.  The recipe below makes a smallish batch–enough for a nice gift or your own personal use–but it is easily doubled or tripled.  Don’t be intimidated by the long (winded) directions, this toffee is easy and quick to make, I just wanted them to be extra clear.

ingredients
2/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup blanched slivered almonds
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips or 2 small chocolate bars
1/2 cup chopped pecans

you will also need
saucepan
candy thermometer
cookie sheet  (I used a small one, but the size doesn’t really matter)
a silpat if you have one, extra butter if you don’t

directions

Before you jump right in, measure out all your ingredients so they are all ready to go. If you’ve never worked with boiling sugar before (or if you are prone to accidents) keep a small bowl of ice water next to the stove in case you burn yourself. Boiling sugar is super hot, so this isn’t one for the kids. If you have a silpat (and you really should get one–they are awesome) put in on your cookie sheet and you’re good to go. If not, butter your cookie sheet like crazy.

Now that everything is ready, put the sugar, butter, water and salt into your saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it reaches 236 degrees Fahrenheit (soft ball) .  This will take a while and the chocolate chips are not there for you to snack on while you wait. The mixture will bubble up quite a bit.  It will stay around 200 degrees for longer than you think it should, but the temperature will shoot up quickly so don’t walk away. Make sure your candy thermometer is not resting on the bottom of the pan, but taking the temperature of the actual candy.

While you are waiting you can warm up the slivered almonds in the microwave. This will keep the candy’s temperature moving up instead of cooling down when you add them (but if you don’t have a microwave, you can skip it).

When the mixture is 236 degrees add the almonds. Stir constantly until it reaches 290 degrees (soft crack). The candy will turn a lovely amber shade and give off a nice, nutty smell. That when you know it’s done. I might have gone a tad too far with mine, but you’re not going to stop and take pictures while you cook.

Add the baking soda and stir.  Pour onto the prepared pan and spread it as best you can. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top, wait a minute for them to melt and then spread them all over the top of the toffee. Sprinkle the chopped pecans on top of the chocolate and let cool.  You can speed up the cooling by popping the toffee in the freezer. When it’s completely cool break up into pieces and give away all that you don’t eat.

I made this half eaten gingerbread man last year, but I thought I’d post it again in case you are starting to freak out about how soon Christmas is (16 days). He’s super simple to sew up. I wrote up instructions and there is a pattern you can download too. If you’d like to see the other mutant gingerbread man I made click here and to know why I made them click here.

Plenty of you want a tutorial for the string of lights advent calendar, so look for that in a couple days. Now get off the computer and finish those christmas presents already.

Ingrid from lottielulu.blogspot.com!

Thank you everyone for playing along (all 250+ of you!).  If you’re peeved that you didn’t win you can hop on over to my shop and buy the little people bag pictured above. There will be more of these in the shop early next week.  You can subscribe to my etsy shop’s RSS feed so you always know when new things are available.

Thanks again! It was amusing hearing what everyone had for breakfast.  Turns out there are two camps: those who eat pastries for breakfast and those who eat leftovers from dinner last night.  And it turns out there are a whole hell of a lot of craft blogs out there. If you are new here I hope you’ll look around and I’ll try to work my way through the hundreds of blogs that are new to me!

It’s giveaway day (thanks to sewmamasew) and I’m giving away this little people bag. It’s a drawstring bag made of muslin with vintage inspired little people appliqued on the front.  Tell a joke, tell me what you ate for breakfast, ramble on and on, whatever, just leave a comment if you’d like to win the bag. There are a ton of blogs giving away all kinds of stuff today, so go forth into the internet and win all your christmas presents.

*edited to add: the drawing will end at 8am central time tomorrow december 4th.

THE CONTEST HAS ENDED, BUT STICK AROUND THERE’S LOTS TO SEE HERE.

Ta da! The advent calendar is done, well pretty much done. It’s a string of chirstmas lights.   One of you guessed correctly! But there were some good ideas out there: an advent abacus, a ferris wheel.  Next year.  There are only twenty lights, but I figure I’ll save some making for next christmas or add them if I have time this month (ha!). There are treats in the bulbs and the lights fit in their little sockets, but they aren’t held in by anything–just the power of felt.  This calendar is for lightweight treats only or bits of paper with sugarless activities on them. I went with candy because my kids are still young enough to think it’s the best thing in the universe.

I’d be happy to write up a quick tutorial (with patterns) if there are a lot of you that would like to make one. It’s not difficult at all.  The hand sewing is a little time consuming, but it’s nothing a few movies won’t fix. If you sewed the bulbs on it would make a nice Christmas decoration for this year (or next).  If you’d like to see more pictures of it you can click here and here.  And there are lots more fantastic calendars here and here.