Use a kettle that doesn’t set on easily and a wooden spoon. Add the butter and melt over medium-high heat.

Once the butter is melted, add the sugar, light corn syrup, water, and vanilla. Continue to cook and stir continuously for about 20 - 30 minutes. Cook until this reaches 300˚ F.

Hints: make sure to stir constantly, keep the wooden spoon in the mixture until done, and use a candy thermometer to tell when you reach the 300˚ F. This will help ensure that you do not have a grainy type texture in the toffee.

Here is the mixture after just a few minutes of cooking. The ingredients are just starting to come together.

This photo is of the mixture cooking about 10 minutes. Time to put the thermometer in the kettle. I make sure to keep stirring and don't forget to stir around the thermometer too.

When the toffee mixture reaches 300˚ F, (the color will be caramel colored) Remove from heat and pour in the 1 Cup of chopped-ground almonds and stir.

Once the almonds are all stirred in, it is ready to pour into the baking sheet. (I like having the nuts in the toffee mixture as it makes it much easier to eat. Along with having this heated to 300 degrees F. the hard crack stage, the addition of the ground nuts makes it just melt in your mouth).

Immediately pour into a 9 X 13” pan. I scrape out the kettle with the wooden spoon, then I get a stainless steel spoon to scrape the wooden spoon clean and spread the hot toffee in the 9 X 13” pan. It usually takes two…once the toffee begins sticking to one spoon, I use the other clean one and it is enough to get the toffee spread. (be careful, the mixture is very hot)

Once the toffee is spread, spoon on ½ of the melted chocolate and spread over the entire 9 X 13” pan. Sprinkle with ½ of the chopped almonds.

Put somewhere to cool. Once cool (you can touch the chocolate and the chocolate has hardened), put another clean 9 X 13” pan on top of the toffee and flip over. You might have to tap the pan a bit, but the toffee mixture should come out and be in the other container.

This will allow you to spread the rest of the melted chocolate over the toffee and sprinkle the rest of the chopped almonds. Once this is complete, set somewhere to let the chocolate that you just put on set.

Break apart and enjoy!