Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Sweet, nutty, and delicious.
Texture: Perfectly crunchy with a slight candy chew.
Ease: Just 3 ingredients and 15 minutes prep and cook time.
Pros: Such a fun DIY!
Cons: None.
Would I make this again? Absolutely, I like to make a double batch and sprinkle them on everything I bake for weeks.
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I adore toffee.
Like butterscotch, toffee seems to be caramel’s forgotten cousin. To me, it deserves as much adoration as caramel. Maybe more!
As much as I love a buttery toffee recipe on its own, my favorite is when it’s added to something already delicious.
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It’s the perfect addition to a chocolate chip cookie, blondie, brownie or even banana bread. Or sprinkle the toffee on cupcakes, French toast, or ice cream. Plus, you likely already have the simple ingredients on hand to make it from scratch.
Bonus: this toffee recipe is also a great treat for giving as delicious holiday gifts during the holidays or Christmas!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Homemade Toffee Bits
What is Toffee?
Toffee is a crunchy, sweet, buttery, cooked sugar candy, similar to caramel and butterscotch. These three classic dessert components seem very similar – so how do they differ?
- Caramel: Based on white granulated sugar. Typically, butter, milk/cream, and vanilla are added for flavor and to produce a thick, creamy caramel. Caramel can be heated less for a sauce consistency, longer for a chewy soft caramel, or even longer for a crunchier hard caramel. I have a recipe for caramel sauce here.
- Butterscotch: Similar process to caramel, but made with brown sugar instead of granulated white sugar. Cream and vanilla are also often added. I have a recipe for butterscotch sauce here.
- Toffee: Just like butterscotch, toffee starts with brown sugar – but the difference between butterscotch and toffee is the temperature it’s heated to. Toffee is cooked longer to a much higher temperature – all the way to the ‘hard crack’ stage. This means that toffee will harden completely as it cools, and can then be cut or broken into pieces, to be added to other delicious desserts, or simply enjoyed by itself!
What are Toffee Bits?
Just what it sounds like! Bits of crunchy sweet toffee, chopped or broken into pieces about the same size as chocolate chips.
Can’t You Just Buy Toffee Bits?
Yes, you can buy them in the baking aisle under the Heath brand. However, they can be difficult to find in some regions and stores. Additionally, many stores only carry chocolate-covered toffee bits, which you may not always want.
But trust me, this homemade toffee recipe is even tastier than the Heath version! Plus, no preservatives or artificial flavors in these homemade sweet morsels!
Only 3 Ingredients Are Needed for Homemade Toffee Bits:
- Butter (more on this below)
- Light brown sugar
- Salt
Why American-Style Butter?
European-style butter (such as Kerrygold) contains a higher butterfat percentage, compared to American-style butter. This lack of water content in European-style butter results in the toffee separating, and/or refusing to set fully. Any butter over 80% butterfat will cause these issues unless you add in 1-2 tablespoons of water to the melting butter.
How to Make DIY Toffee Bits From Scratch:
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Then, add the sugar and salt and whisk until combined. Continue whisking for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture looks like melted peanut butter (reference the picture below). Make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan or pot.
- Pour the toffee onto the prepared baking sheet pan, allowing it to spread. Let cool for about 20 minutes.
- Use a mallet, rolling pin, or heavy object to crack the batch of toffee into small bits.
- You can now use your toffee pieces to amp up the flavor in cookies, brownies, streusel toppings, sprinkled on top of vanilla ice cream, you name it!
Tips for Making Toffee:
- Before you start the recipe, line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. It’s best to do this first because you will need to pour the finished toffee onto the prepared pan immediately.
- If your toffee burns on the bottom or you’re having trouble with the toffee separating (and you’re using American-style butter!), try a thicker-based heavy saucepan. Pans with thinner bottoms will heat too aggressively and may cause separation or scorching.
- Never step away from the toffee while it’s on the stove. It can burn quickly.
- Do not try to touch or taste the sugar while it’s cooking, as it will be extremely hot.
- Separated toffee can sometimes be saved by removing the saucepan from the heat and whisking vigorously until it comes back together into a smooth mixture.
- A candy thermometer is so helpful in making toffee. This is my favorite candy thermometer.
- Make sure to let the toffee cool completely before you break it into bits and store it.
How to Store Toffee Bits
Once cooled and cut or broken into pieces, freeze in an airtight container or zip-top bag for up to 3 months. Allow to thaw at room temperature before enjoying or adding to cookie dough, streusel or other baked goods.
Recipes Using Toffee Bits:
Homemade Toffee Bits
Ingredients
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted American butter*
- 1 cup (200 grams) light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
Instructions
- Line a small rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- In a heavy-bottomed small saucepan, begin melting the butter over medium heat. Add the sugar and salt to the partially melted butter and whisk vigorously for one minute until combined. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture looks like melted peanut butter and a candy thermometer reaches 295 to 305°F, about 10 minutes.
- If the mixture separates at all, remove from heat and whisk vigorously until recombined. Return to heat and continue cooking.
- Immediately and carefully pour the hot toffee onto the prepared baking pan, allowing it to spread into an even layer. Let cool and harden for about 20 minutes.
- Place the sheet of toffee on a cutting board or in a zip top bag. Use a mallet, rolling pin, or heavy object to crack it into small pieces. You can also cut into bits with a sharp serrated knife. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
Recipe Notes
Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Very easy just had standard butter (clover) in my fridge broke up some chocolate over it about 10 minutes into the cool and spread it round with back of a spoon
I’m going to try this again. Toffee sorts of things have never been my strong suit. It got to the temperature, but then I think I was too slow in getting it off the heat and it burned. I have a candy thermometer but it’s a little bit cumbersome. Could I use a digital meat thermometer? If that works, it would help simplify.
Never mind, I thought the meat thermometer went higher than it does, so it doesn’t actually solve my problem.
Hi Mollie! Yeah, unfortunately most meat thermometers don’t reach a high enough temperature for working with toffee, and they’re also much shorter in length so you have to be careful handling it near the hot sugar. If it’s helpful, Tessa loves this candy thermometer, especially because it also doubles as a deep-fry thermometer. You could also try an instant-read thermometer (our team loves this one) to quickly check the temp of your toffee. You’ll just need to check it more regularly to ensure you don’t burn the sugar. I hope that’s helpful! Good luck with your next batch, and please let us know how it goes!
Fabulous rwcipe. I only had salted butter and dark brown sugar at home. It came out delicious. Im addicted to skor chocolate (Canada), nowvi can make my own. Bettervthan any toffee bits i ever had. Thanks for the recipe ❤
I love this poured over pretzels. I call it crack because it’s addicting.
This toffee is so delicious. I made it for the toffee, brown butter chocolate chip cookies and they were SO good. Sadly not much of the toffee were left for the cookies as my family and I munched most of it ><.
I do have a question, as I’m in Europe and 82% fat butter is all we have, the toffee wasn’t real hard. It didn’t stand out in the cookies (I think it melted). So is there an alternative or an addition that can be made to make it hard?? I wanna make it again and again and I would just Love for it to stand out in the cookies as it is Really good. Thanks
Use one tablespoon of water and a thermometer really helps. I usually pull it at around 140-145 C. Also stirring frequently helps it not separate.
That’s very sweet of you, many thanks I’ll definitely try doing so next time.
So easy, I’ve failed at caramel making more times than I can count but this was stupendous and so easy to make. Your instructions point by point were perfect. Thank you.
I’m so glad to hear that, Tazzy!
This is my second recipe making the toffee. So far so good it just has to harden for another 15 minutes and hopefully it will be good.
This recipe is amazing and delicious, and best of all – it’s easy! The first time I made it I didn’t use a thermometer and took it off the heat too soon because I was afraid to burn it. It never hardened. I was able to save it by heating it back up and melting it and getting it to the right temp. It worked like a charm! Just made my second batch for your brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies, which are also magnificent!
The recipe worked perfectly. I needed a crunchy filling for some almond cookies. It was so easy to make, and tastier than the store-bought kind. I think a pinch of vanilla would be nice, not sure if that would disrupt the process.
You can add a small splash of vanilla once the toffee is cooked and is just off the heat. It doesn’t mess anything up, but if it’s added too early the vanilla burns. So it just needs to be mixed in after cooking before spreading it out!
PS I agree that this took nowhere near 10 minutes. Mine would have been burnt to a crisp well before then.
I only had Kerrygold butter on hand, and it worked to make toffee that did not separate by adding about 1 Tb of water (I was not precise) to the melting butter.
Thank you