HEAVEN PRESERVE US! OH MY! IT'S TOFFEE BLOBS!!!!!!!

This recipe is brought to you by a dear darling friend, Miss Karyn Mott. She's one of the most marvelous cooks I've ever met and is only a little larger than a ladle. This post is also brought to you by orange Crush ice cream floats on a hot summer day.

Miss Mott and I were supposed to go out to the lake for the night but an audition in Winnipeg came up and she had to leave the next morning, so we ended up just hanging at my place for a couple of hours here in town.

Karyn had promised to cater some friends' theatrical picnic and decided to premake the desserts before she left. And so, I give you... toffee blobs.


Start with the cheapest generic brand of corn flakes you can find. Keep in mind that this recipe is exceptionally simple, and that you may add or subtract quantities as you like.


So you have your cornflakes. You will also need toffee and/or caramels depending on your budget. Miss Mott said that the original recipe called for just MacIntosh Toffee but that that can get rather costly so she started combining Mac toffee with Werther' chewy and good old fashioned Kraft caramels.


You will also need either butter or margarine. Karyn used to be vegan and so got used to baking with margarine. She has now slid back along the spectrum towards the middle (I believe she currently resides somewhere around the pescetarian mark) but is still the most mind-bogglingly amazing vegan baker I know.

Most vegans opt for Fleischmann's margarine. I don't know why, but this is something I have observed in other's fridges throughout my lifetime. You can go the Becel or Earthbalance routes if you prefer. Or say to hell with it and use straight up butter.

Toss about a tablespoon of fat into a large saucepan on medium heat. With a knife or spoon, slide the stuff around the saucepan to coat all of the sides. This is a very sticky recipe and if you don't ensure everything is precoated with something we're looking at a pretty messy situation. I don't want handfuls of readers writing in to complain. So just do it please.

In advance of melting the fat on the stove, or if you have a handy assistant...

You'll need about 4 cups of candy so put on some tunes and start unwrapping. When you've got about that much, toss it all together in a bowl and continue to wait until the margarine is all melted.


As I said, this is a simple recipe, but you've got to keep an eye on the stove or you'll be in trouble. With a wooden spoon, stir continuously as the candies melt and combine with the melted butter or margarine.


Stirring helps to break up all the larger masses of melted toffee and caramel and it also helps to incorporate the melted fat into the melted caramel... drool.


The other thing you've got to watch for as everything melts is that you don't want the sugars in the candy to burn. So just watch that your stove is not too hot for the pace of the melting.

Right, so cornflakes? Check. Butter/margarine? Check. Toffee and caramels galore? Check. Now you need to make this gooey mess of stuff even sweeter. Pour in a half a can of sweetened condensed milk. Eagle Brand is a classic, but generic store brand is just as good.


Start slowly, first with a good splash of condensed milk. Set it aside so you can work in what's already there. Stir vigorously to combine it into the simmering toffee mixture. Be careful it doesn't splash up. Poor Miss Mott was trying to do so many things at once I think she got a little bit scalded on her stirring hand.


The temperature can come down a little to a low-medium at this point as you stir in what remains of the half can you will need for this recipe. Remember, you can easily add more butter and caramels to extend this into a larger recipe.


So as Miss Mott and I switched off with stirring, taking photos, and making calls getting directions and a place to stay in Winnipeg, the most incredible aroma began to fill the kitchen. And then the rest of the house. And then out the open window onto the sidewalk beyond. Seriously. This recipe is this simple.

The stove-top part of the recipe is done. Now you'll need some cooking spray like Pam, but a little drop of vegetable oil will work fine if that's what you've got on hand. Evenly coat the walls of a large mixing bowl with spray or oil. Karyn did this awesome little trick where she rotated the bowl while spraying in short bursts rather than in a continuous spray. I am totally using that method from now on.

So here is our lovely prepared bowl and into this Miss Mott just dumped a bunch of cornflakes... 5 or 6 cups to start maybe?


Now it was time to get the saucepan of tasty and combine the two. Pour the toffee mixture into the bowl and start to coat all the cornflakes in goo. Add more cornflakes as you go. Remember, the goo is very very sticky and a little goes a long way so you can add quite a lot more cereal. In total I think we probably used about three quarters of the package.


As you stir everything together get right to the bottom of the bowl with your spoon and then sort of flip that over so that everything on the bottom is now on the top. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl and don't worry too much about crushing some of the cornflakes. It doesn't matter if they are all intact in the end.

When you can no longer find big pools of toffee goo it's time for the shaping of the blobs. The toffee goo to cornflake ratio should look something like this...



I had trouble stopping myself from eating it straight out of the mixing bowl in little handfuls. When I regained my composure, Miss Mott told me to wet down my hands. That's the real secret to making the blobs, she told me. The goo is so sticky that if you let your hands get to dry the cereal starts to stick to your hands instead of itself.

So either keep a bowl of water beside where you are working or run back and forth to the sink, it doesn't really matter.

Form the mixture into golf ball sized blobs in your hands and sort of compress that together to make it solid. Place the formed blobs on wax or parchment paper and set them aside to cool before eating. Karyn says they will last up to a week in the fridge. Take them out 15 minutes before serving.

She also likes to make a batch and keep them in the freezer. It's unlikely that they'll make is this long without getting eaten, but in a sealed container they can stay there for up to a month. Let them thaw for an hour... if you have enough restraint.

Thanks for the lovely baking time, Miss Karyn. I hope you got the part in Winnipeg. I certainly got something sweet out of the deal. Lots of love...