Archive for the ‘Metric Math In Your Kitchen’ Category

Candy Math Problem

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Toffee Grams to Ounces

Toffee Grams to Ounces

You can spend a lot of time visiting every grocery store in your area – and don’t forget about all of those smaller convenience stores in your neighborhood – but you are NOT likely to find your Mackintosh Toffeeanywhere!  The traditional “slab” or “flat bar” format is long gone – some say that a fire destroyed the factory while other toffee freaks whisper among themselves that there was some mysterious industrial sabotage behind Nestle’s production problem – but whatever urban legend you want to believe – the problem is still the same.  Just where can you buy your Mack Toffee?  Mackintosh Toffee in the original format is just not around anymore.  All of the fun of freezing your toffee bars, then slamming them hard against a counter top is over!  Let it go!

However, if you still have your favorite toffee recipe that requires Mackintosh Toffee ingredients, Bella Mia Candy Store suggests you consider a bag of individually wrapped pieces of Mackintosh Toffee.  These colorful 170 gram bags are filled with about 20 individually wrapped pieces and, with a little bit of Metric Math you can convert grams to “ounces” for your favorite recipe.

Everything you need to solve your culinary equation is on the back of the Mack Toffee bag …Asking yourself just how many Mack Toffee pieces are in an ounce?  O.K. – let’s peek at the backside (no, not yours…) – I am now referring to the back of the Mackintosh Toffee bag that is…)   Here is what the Bella Mia Candy Store suggests:

The traditional “slab” style of Mackintosh Toffee Bar weighted 56 grams [ 1 gram = 0.0352739619 ounces ]  Therefore, a 56 gram bar of Mackintosh Toffee converts to 1.975 ounces.  The new 170 gram bag (individually wrapped toffee pieces) equals 5.9966 ounces – so just round that to 6 ounces…Information on the back of the bag indicates that 5 pieces = 40 grams = 1.41 ounces.   Divide that by 5 = weight of each piece = 0.282 = so round that to .30 ounces

Voila!  Each individually wrapped piece = 0.3 ounces –  Therefore, 6.5 to 7 wrapped pieces = 1.97 ounces = 56 grams = 1 bar (old style)

Once you solve your personal culinary equation – you might want to try this recipe!

Toffee Cornflake Squares

6 bars Macintosh Toffee (hopefully you were paying attention – if not review your metric math solution just one more time…)
1/2 can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup butter
8 cups cornflakes

Melt butter, toffee and add Eagle Brand condensed milk until well mixed and melted, stirring mixture constantly so it doesn’t burn.  Pour over Cornflakes and stir the mixture until everything is well coated.  Pat into greased 9 x 13 pan.  Let it cool, then cut into squares or drop into mounds on cookie sheet.  Yum!