Toffee vs Candy: Difference and Comparison

From toddlers to adults, no one can ever deny their love for sweets, especially candies and toffees. Toffee and Candy are both unique in their ways and have their own set of features or properties that makes them distinct from others.

As these confectionery items are very famous, there are times when these sweets get confused by the same people who love eating them.

Key Takeaways

1. Toffee is a confectionery made by boiling sugar and butter together, resulting in a chewy, sticky texture.
2. Candy is a broader term encompassing various sweet treats made from sugar, including hard candies, gummies, and chocolates.
3. Toffee is a specific type of candy, while candy refers to a wide array of sweet confections.

Toffee vs Candy

Toffee is made from sugar and butter that is cooked to a high temperature to create a caramelized flavor, while candy can be made from a variety of ingredients, including sugar, corn syrup, flavorings, and colorings. Toffee has a hard, brittle texture, while candy can have a variety of textures.

Toffee is a solid and chewy candy made with sugar and butter. Although toffee is hard and brittle at the start after chewing and sucking for some time, it becomes softer.

For preparing toffee, sugar is caramelized first and then mixed with butter; and sometimes additional ingredients are added to this mixture for extra flavor and texture.

Candy is a sweet confectionery item that is made primarily with sugar.

Candy is a huge category consisting of a range of sweet confections like hard and soft candy, marshmallows, caramels, etc. Sugar is the main ingredient and characteristic for making all these candies.

Candy is sweet and tiny in size, that is why people confuse it with desserts, but it is as a snack.

Comparison Table

Parameters of Comparison	Toffee	Candy
Definition	Type of candy.	Confectionery item.
Ingredients	Sugar, butter, and flour.	Sugar, water, or milk.
Types	English toffee, honeycomb toffee, soft toffee.	Marshmallow, jelly beans,  praline, tablet, etc.
Creation process	Sugar is mixed with flour and butter and boiled till crack stage.	Sugar is caramelized with water or milk.
Usage	It refers to chewy and hard candy.	It refers to all kinds of confections.

What is Toffee?

Toffee is a type of candy that is made when sugar or molasses is caramelized and incorporated with butter. Sometimes flour is added to this mixture.

After everything is mixed properly, the mixture is heated to 149°C to 154°C or until the temperature of the mixtures reaches the stage of cracking.

While preparing the mixture for toffee, sometimes nuts and raisins are also added to it for additional texture and flavors. In the United States, toffee is very famous and is known as English toffee.

This English toffee has a very buttery texture and is made with almonds most of the time. English toffee is available in two types which are hard toffee and chewy toffee.

For making a good toffee, the sugar is required to be heated at the stage of hard crack or soft crack.

For doing so, one should use a heavy-base and high-sided pan and a thermometer that is specifically created for checking the temperature of hot caramelized sugar.

If the thermometer is not available, the mixture of the toffee can be tested by dropping a small amount of that hot mixture into cold or iced water; and then squeezing the small ball of that mixture that is formed in cold water.

After pressing the ball, if the mixture feels soft and squeezable, then it is in the soft crack stage; but if that ball is solid and not squeezable, then it is in the hard crack stage.

If you want to make a soft toffee many recipes suggest heating the sugar at a lower temperature.

What is Candy?

Candy is a confectionery item that has sugar as the main ingredient. Candy is also known as lollies and sweets in British English.

The term candy is used to refer to all types of sweets made by using sugar as their principal ingredient.

Candy is not just a single sweet or item; it is a huge group consisting of candy bars, chocolates, licorice, hard candies, salty candies, tart candies, sour candies, marshmallows, taffies, gumdrops, etc.

However, in the world of confections, people use candies to refer to only hard-boiled candies.

These candies are also known as sugar candies that are made with sugar and water or milk. First, the sugar is mixed with water or milk until dissolved and becomes a syrup.

Then this syrup is boiled to several temperatures until caramelization or until it reaches the desired temperature required for the type of candy that is going to be produced.

The texture and type of the candy produced depend on the ingredients used in the mixture and the duration of boiling that mixture.

The process of making candy is known as Candy making and it includes the preparation of every sugar confectionery from soft candies to toffee and chocolates. Candy is available in many textures and flavors.

From soft to chewy or hard to brittle, one can easily find the right texture they like in candy.

Main Differences Between Toffee and Candy

1. Toffee was invented by the English people as the sugar source from the Caribbean was cheap, whereas candy was invented by the ancient Egyptians who combined various nuts and fruits with honey.
2. For toffee making, sugar is combined and heated with milk or water and butter until caramelized, whereas candy is made by mixing sugar in water or milk and heated until dissolved into a syrup. 
3. Toffee is a type of candy that is hard and chewy, whereas candy is a huge category of confectionery sweets that also includes toffee.
4. The first-ever toffee was made in the 19th century, whereas candy was first made in the 16th century.
5. The principal ingredient in making toffee is sugar and butter, whereas the principal ingredient for making any type of candy is mainly sugar.

References

1. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-9383-9_34

Last Updated : 13 February, 2024