Tavern Toffee
The journey to receiving six international awards for toffee starts locally – Doylestown to be exact.
Since its inception in 2010, the BucksLocavore ~ Buy Local Event has introduced thousands of people to the buy local movement. SuperiorWoodcraft is the creator and annual host of the event that is held every February. Every year the event gets bigger and better – the last Locavore~ Buy Local Event attracted over 800 people and thirty local food and beverage producers showcased their goods.
Patrick Kennedy, of Superior Woodcraft says “Many people think of the Bucks Locavore~Buy Local event as a business networking event. This event is much more – it is an experience. It’s a business incubator. Many business relationships and new products have been created from the local companies that participate in this experience. They start collaborating and next thing you know business relationships are formed and new products are developed.
One of those collaborations was between Laurie’s Chocolates and The Doylestown Brewing Company. The combination of these local products created award winning toffee. Below Laurie shares more about this collaboration and how you can get your hands on some international award winning tavern toffee that is produced locally.
Guest Post by Laurie Douglass of Laurie’s Chocolates
The origins of Tavern Toffee
One of my biggest wholesale customers, The 
Chocolate Box, in Lambertville, had a need for a unique toffee to sell by the pound. We had the idea of using lager in place of water to provide a beer type of flavor, but as the toffee cooks for several hours and no alcohol remains, we decided to use malt to enhance that flavor. Most toffee is made with crushed almonds or other nuts, so we continued with the almonds, but also added pretzels, because what pairs better with beer than almonds and pretzels!
We’ve partnered with Doylestown Brewery over the past few years and have used R5 Lager featured at the Locavore ~ Buy Local Event held every February at Superior Woodcraft. And always, the use of Pennsylvania Dutch sourdough pretzels a
dds an extra dimension of crunch and saltiness. While we use R5 larger we can customize the toffee by using any local lager when making our tavern toffee. Now your bar, brew pub or restaurant can have its own signature tavern toffee.
The Awards
We recently attended the Artisan Chocolate Awards and International ChocolateAwards and were honored at the International Chocolate Salon, TASTE TV, in San Francisco, California. Fifteen to twenty companies, ranging from small to large, competed. After winning two silvers and 2 bronzes in last year’s contest, I was highly motivated to continually work on the formula in order to win Gold this year – and we did! Laurie’s Chocolates left with six awards – Gold Award for Best Texture, Gold Award for Most Unique, Silver Award for Best Ingredient Combination, Bronze Award for Best Product Name, Bronze Award for Best Taste, and Bronze Award for Top Toffee.
We are very proud of the Gold Award for Best Texture – when it comes to toffee, texture is everything. You want the right amount of crunch and snap, but you definitely don’t want the toffee sticking to your teeth for too long! There were 13 judges for the Toffee Contest and a select few comments were posted to the awards page. We’re proud to be called out in this one: “Laurie’s Chocolates Tavern Toffee was so unique and such a fun idea. Bars should start serving it for a sweet treat!”
Availability
Our Tavern Toffee is available at The Chocolate Box in Lambertville, Jamie Hollander Gourmet in New Hope, and in Doylestown: The Larder, None Such Farm Market and Sandy Ridge Farm Market. Online orders are always welcome at www.laurieschocolates.com or if you are local, by emailing me at laurieschocolates@yahoo.com