Anna's Almond Rocca

Anna's Almond Rocca
from Cooking Light Bulletin Boards

Ingredients:
2 Cups Sugar
1 Pound Butter (4 sticks)
1 Cup Water
1/2 tsp. Salt
3 Cups Almonds, the "shaved" kind
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 pound bar of Cadbury Milk Chocolate, broken up

Directions:
Reserve 1 cup of the almonds and set aside. Mix sugar, butter, water, and salt in large, heavy saucepan and heat to boiling over medium to medium high heat. Make sure there's room in the saucepan for the mixture to foam up and boil. Heat mixture over medium to medium high until it foams and reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. When temp reaches 240, stir in 2 cups of almonds. Stir mixture constantly and watch temp carefully until temp reaches 290. Remove from heat, stir in soda and QUICKLY pour onto a cookie sheet covered with buttered or greased wax paper. Mixture should start to harden immediately. As mixture hardens, sprinkle chocolate chunks over hardening mixture and spread the chocolate chunks around until they melt. Sprinkle melted chocolate with reserved almonds. Let sit until toffee hardens and chocolate sets.
Notes: For this recipe to turn out perfect, you have to watch temperatures CAREFULLY. Don't let the almonds burn (so use medium to medium high heat) and don't remove the mixture from the stove before temp reaches 290. If you do, you'll get chewy almond rocca .