Mary Louise (ML) Dubay ‘s Christmas traditions included making toffee from a “secret” recipe with her grandmother each year. She continued the toffee tradition for years, gifting friends and co-workers with her sweet treats during the holidays. Many of them encouraged her to start a toffee business, but she was happy in her corporate career. A change of direction often comes unexpectedly, and for ML, one was precipitated by a cancer diagnosis. She left her corporate position, spent some time volunteering for Legacy Brain Foundation, a Texas organization that raises funds to provide financial assistance to cancer patients and their families, and she made her special toffee. Along the way to a successful candy business, she was encouraged by her husband, Chef Duane Dubay, and Food Network celebrity Paula Deen.
I love toffee, and I’m pretty convinced that people who don’t like it just haven’t had good toffee! However, finding said good toffee can be a bit of a challenge, and we have had our share of disappointments. I was excited to find Toffee Treats at Central Market, especially because the package I picked up had some of my favorite ingredients: white chocolate, cranberries and pecans!
The toffee has generous measures of fruit and nuts. The toffee layer is superb — perfectly golden brown without even the slightest hint of stickiness. The buttery caramelized sugar base is complemented by luscious, creamy white chocolate. Could this get any better? A bigger box of toffee, perhaps? Fortunately, Toffee Treats’ website has lots of options. You can select from several flavors in addition to the white chocolate cranberry pecan: milk chocolate almond, dark chocolate almond, or Hatch chile dark chocolate almond. ML offers package sizes from 1/4 pound to a full pound of toffee, and she has a combination box with several flavors. Her creativity is evident, not only in the lovely toffee we tried, but also in chocolate almond “olives” in a martini glass. Check it out on her website. I can imagine setting several of these on a holiday buffet table.
If you have been following our blog for any amount of time, you know we love a good product with an equally good back story. ML’s courage in battling cancer, her generosity in donating part of her profits to cancer charities, and her scrumptious toffee totally hit the mark for us!
Foods We Love 