Toffee Bars
TOFFEE BARS
Mary reporting. Toffee is probably not the first treat that crosses your mind when you’re asked to bring a dessert to a picnic. The traditional British toffee is a hard, sticky, sweet candy made by heating sugar, butter and water, pouring it in a pan to cool, then cutting into squares. 
But if you take those basic toffee ingredients, add pecans, pour them on graham crackers and bake them, you have a cookie with a sweet topping that’s delicious in the front parlor or on the hillside under a tree.You’ll find variations of this recipe in every church cookbook south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Here’s my family’s version that is easier to make than a pecan praline, and almost as good. You enjoy that salty pecan taste mixed with super-sweet brown sugar. Note: The pecans make this unsuitable for young children.
INGREDIENTS:
16 whole graham crackers
16 tablespoons (two sticks) of unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped, toasted pecans
STEP BY STEP:
- Spread nuts in a single layer on a rimmed cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 5 to 10 minutes. Shake cookie sheet now and then and watch carefully so they don’t burn. Remove from oven when they begin to smell fragrant. This extra step brings out the flavor of the nuts. Cool.
- Melt butter, salt and brown sugar in a sauce pan over low heat, stirring constantly. When smooth, remove from heat.
- Add cooled pecans to mixture.
- Coat two rimmed cookie sheets with non-stick cooking spray. Place graham crackers on cookie sheets with sides touching. Pour sugar/nut mixture over crackers. Smooth with back of spoon to cover grahams completely.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 13 to 15 minutes. The mixture will bubble and saturate the graham crackers.
- Remove from oven and cool for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting into pieces. The topping will harden as it cools. If you cut each graham cracker in fourths, you will have 64 delicious cookies.
