Talking About Toffee

• Posted on April 1, 2016
• by Jamie Stahl
• in Food Facts
• 2 Comments.

photo courtesy of Laurie Pauker

Before I start writing, I want to let everyone know that this piece isn’t intended to make anyone feel jealous.  Yes, you may envy the experience that I had, but I am not writing about it to suggest that anyone’s life is inferior.  With this in mind, I’d like to share with you about the fantastic “Willy Wonka-esque” adventure I had while visiting the Laurie & Son’s kitchen. 

I was invited to tour the kitchen where Laurie & Son’s creates all of their products.  Laurie & Son’s offers chocolate toffees that are made with the extremely high quality ingredients.  The chocolate used is Fairtrade and the sea salt comes all the way from Maine.  Many of the ingredients are also sourced locally.  Laurie & Son’s has an assortment of original toffee flavors which include Dangerously Delicious Black Licorice, Moroccan Spiced with Cinnamon and Cayenne, Maine Sea Salt and Maine Sea Salt with Tellicherry Pepper. 

If everyone wouldn’t mind, I’d like to skip the part of the story where I am on the subway and I realize I left my cell phone at home and end up arriving about 30 minutes late to meet Laurie.   Let’s just get into the visit itself…

The first thing you need to know is that there is a Toffee Table.  It’s a giant table that rolls out and slices the toffee into individual pieces.  Picture a rectangular dining table that can accommodate seating for 6.  It takes about 1 hour per toffee batch to be ready for the next step.  This is when the toffee is brought into the Chocolate Room.  Yes, a room dedicated to chocolate.  A room designed specifically to house chocolate.  The purpose of the chocolate room is to control the temperature and humidity so that the chocolate is tempered correctly.  Chocolate needs to be monitored regularly in order to maintain it’s properties.  There are several machines in the chocolate room that temper the chocolate and are used to dip the toffee in.  Because each individual toffee is dipped by hand, a single toffee batch with 2 people dipping chocolate could take about 5 hours to complete.

Laurie showed me how the chocolate dipping process worked.  Other than being fascinated by the technique it takes to coat a single piece of toffee, I couldn’t help but think about poor Augustus Gloop falling into the chocolate river.  I mean, it was completely his fault and he shouldn’t have been sticking his head in the chocolate anyway, but to be sucked up into that machine pump!  How awful! 

The big moment came for me when Laurie asked if I wanted to try dipping a few pieces of toffee myself.  Of course I did, but I was very nervous about messing it up.  I cautiously followed her lead of “tap, scrape, repeat” and added my pieces to the large sheet of previously made toffees.  With a tiny sprinkle of the Maine Sea Salt and Tellicherry Pepper mixture, I was finished.  Ah!  It was so much fun!  I could probably have sat in a chair for at least an hour just dipping chocolate in that room.  Alas, I am not a professional chocolate dipper and after another couple of dips, it was time to move on. 

Spending time in the Laurie & Son’s kitchen and learning their process for making toffee was interesting for all of my senses.  I think taste and smell enjoyed themselves the most, but it was great to see how the candies are made, hear Laurie talk about the business, and physically use some of the machines.  You can go online to the Laurie & Son’s website to purchase toffee and learn more about this amazing company and product.  Here is a link:  http://www.laurieandsons.com/ 

I had a great time visiting the Laurie & Son’s kitchen and will leave you with a couple of friendly pieces of advice.  1) If the work you do is about 90% dependent on your cell phone and camera, check to make sure you have it with you before you leave the house.  2) Even if you think you don’t like licorice, try the licorice flavor because it’s unbelievable and I don’t like licorice. 

For more information go to http://www.laurieandsons.com/

I look very serious dipping the toffee in chocolate and very fashionable wearing a hairnet!  Video courtesy of Laurie Pauker.  

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