Wrapped in a glittering sheet, an amalgam of butter and sugar, molded in different forms comes the gold medal to us known by the name of Toffee.

For me its a nostalgic element of life. All of us have experienced getting rewarded by toffee given to us by our elders and grandparents and then the entry of our mothers lecturing about cavities from eating sweets and toffees and how bad they are for our health. But as we all know, sweets are something which can never be taken off from someone be it a kid or an adult. Even after completing my 22 years on this planet there is no power which can influence me enough to stop eating toffee.

At times I think about the era when there was no toffees in the world to harness on, so what do those people used to consume at the time of a sweet craving ?

Well going in the historical annals of candy, toffee is far from an ancient treat. Most food historians concur the sweet treat rose to prominence sometime during the early 19th century. England and many other European countries took a particular liking to toffee thanks to their plentiful butter supplies. At any rate, toffee took off in the early 1800’s, and we know this for a fact since The Oxford English Dictionary first mentioned the word “toffee” in 1825. Naturally, the word had been in use for some time before making its way into a dictionary, so it is safe to assume that the English and other Europeans were enjoying toffee years before the word’s first appearance in a historical document. While the origins of toffee do not have a clear historical consensus, the toffee eaten today also has an interesting background in its own right.

The origin of the word ‘toffee’ seems to be lost in time although it might de described from ‘taffy’, a dialect word for ‘sticky’.

Interestingly, however, the toffee that is so cherished by many today is not the toffee of English origin. In fact, it is actually more accurate to call it a different name entirely. The English toffee eaten with regularity in America is also called buttercrunch. What’s the difference? Primarily, the difference rests in the ingredients. Toffee in Britain is made with brown sugar, whereas buttercrunch is made with white granulated sugar. The differences do not stop there, however, since the delectable buttercrunch is usually made with a nice variety of nuts and other flavorings. Traditional British toffee, on the other hand, is not made with nuts. It is fair to ask, then, why the name English toffee persisted when most Americans are enjoying buttercrunch.

It could well be that English toffee simply sounded preferable to the ear. Buttercrunch just doesn’t have quite the same ring as English toffee does it? Or, perhaps businesses simply thought the fancy phrasing of “English toffee” would sell better and stuck with the name. At any rate, the term English toffee is here to stay.

Be it the Englishmen to be the first ones to invent the toffee but its taste caught the palate of each and every child in this world relishing its deliciousness since 1825.