There’s not a lot of information to be gleaned in this review.  Oh, except the fact that I’ve found the perfect caramels.  No biggee.

First, we should address the “toffee” terminology.  Toffee and caramel are VERY similar.  And sometimes it seems that the terms are misused.  But in short: they both involve breaking down sugar to its caramel state.  At it’s core, “caramel” is just heated sugar.  When you add milk or cream, and butter, and heat it to the “hard crack” state, it becomes toffee.  Think Heath Bar.  Sweet, salty, delicious Heath Bars.

Then there’s a the shitty soft caramel candies we’re used to seeing on Halloween, or from Brach’s in the supermarket bulk candy bin.  Those are in essence the same thing as toffee, but just not heated as high.  It’s heated till “firm ball” stage (@ 120 degrees), so that there is caramelization of everything but the sugars.
That’s all fine and good, but…still confusing.  See, these “toffees” don’t have the consistency of Heath Bars- rather, they’re more like the hardest chewy caramels.  Ever.  But more on that later.

If you noticed, on the wrapper it instructs us to “whack then unwrap”. Note to Matty Guru: they’re referring to the candy, Sicko.

Not one to ignore instructions,  you smack the pack-hard-against the stone floor.  At least I did.  Three times.  Still, this was the extent of the breakage:

One other large chunk fell off-into m’mouth, yo!  Anyhow, I suppose these could shatter completely depending on a lot of factors (temperature, age, etc).  It really doesn’t matter, because as you can see, the pieces are somewhat sectioned off, so snapping one off isn’t that difficult.

When you first put one in your mouth, it seems to be a hard candy.  No give.  But slowly, that give becomes present, and then the chewing starts.  Deeply flavored, delightfully hard to chew, these things-for sure-are in my mind, the ideal chewing caramel.  But I like things chewy-you guys know that.

There’s no artificial flavoring, coloring, or preservatives in these, which is great, and perhaps one of the reasons they get so damn chewy.  Best part?  Widely available all over the internet for very little money.

Bottom line: if you love the consistency and chew of Brach’s Caramels, these couldn’t be more different.  If you like super hard caramel fresh out of the fridge that seems to be a solid rock at first, than this is for you.  I’d say anyone who claims to enjoy caramel or toffee should give them a try.  Of note, they also have a “treacle” version, which I’ll review in the future, as well as an almond variety.

Needless to say, I highly recommend these.