Awesome Toffee

I thought I'd share my awesome toffee recipe in time to make it for the holidays. My mom's ex taught it to me about 20 years ago, but since she had to email me recently to get a copy of it (and I didn't even get a 'thanks for taking the time to write it down for me') and I have made it so many times that I can now make it from memory, I'll call it my own.

A pound of butter
Three cups of sugar
24 ounces of *good* chocolate - Ghirardelli at minimum. If you use Nestle or Hershey crap on this recipe, you will be wasting your time.
A bag of walnuts

Cut a piece of the butter off and use it to grease a cake pan or cookie sheet - something with walls high enough to hold the toffee. An 18x11 inch pan is a good size.

Melt the butter in a heavy pan. When it has melted, as it starts browning, add the sugar, stirring to mix. Continue gently stirring over medium to medium-high heat until the toffee has cooked to a dark brown. If there is a puddle of butter on the top, use a paper towel to soak as much of it as possible up. Pour the toffee into the cake pan. Sometimes at this point I add the walnuts so the walnuts help hold the chocolate and toffee together, sometimes I just add it to the chocolate.

Wait for the toffee to cool and harden, then rub the top with paper towels until any excess oil from the butter is gone. (If you added enough sugar in the above steps, there won't be any to mop up.) Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or in the microwave, but be careful not to burn it). Spread over the top of the toffee. Cool until the chocolate hardens. It may have to be refrigerated.