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
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Ingredients
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted American butter*
- 1 cup (200 grams) light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon fine sea 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
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Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
We loveeeee this recipe! So easy and it’s always a hit. How do you suggest making these GF?
None of the ingredients in this recipe contain gluten, so no changes are needed.
GREAT JOB creating a wonderfully delicious alternate to “Heath Bar” toffee. This is SO MUCH better, and with simple ingredients! I used it for this Martha Stewart recipe. It worked perfectly!
https://www.marthastewart.com/316680/salted-toffee-chocolate-squares
THANK you so much!
This toffee is scrumptious!
The instructions were really clear, so it felt like a foolproof recipe to follow.
I’m using the toffee bits in pumpkin cookies so I added some pumpkin pie spice to the light brown sugar before putting it in the saucepan & mmmm, these bits will be PERFECT in the cookies!
5 stars!
Can I use dark brown sugar for this recipe? 😀
I used 1/4 dark 3/4 white and it came out good. COOK IT LOW AND SLOW. I used just under medium heat because it tasted like it burned a bit with the first batch.
YAY! Success! Soooo good!
I am NOT a baker. I never do the baking in our house. But I got a hankering for toffee and looked for the simplest/quickest recipe I could find. 3 ingredients and 35 minutes? That’s the recipe for me!
I was SURE I would mess this up. We didn’t have unsalted butter, so I used the salted Kirkland butter we had. We didn’t have enough light brown sugar, so I used a combination of light and dark. Since the butter was salted, I only used 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
I followed the recipe as carefully as I could. I whisked and I stirred constantly. I used medium heat. We don’t have a candy thermometer, and our kitchen thermometer wouldn’t work. So, I just kept stirring and watching the clock. The consistency changed at about 8 minutes. At 10 minutes or so, I removed it from the heat and poured it in the pan (with parchment paper). Put it in the fridge for 20 minutes and PRESTO…. WONDERFUL TOFFEE that I MADE MYSELF!! Came off the paper just fine. Thank you! My wife and kids are so proud of me! 🙂
I forgot to include a star rating in my comment. 5 STARS! * * * * *
Yay!! Thank you so much for sharing your experience, Mike. I’m happy this recipe worked perfectly for you! Your toffee looks delicious.
Easy and delicious!
I’m a pretty seasoned baker and this was impossible to make. After 90+ minutes of sweating over the stove stirring constantly and trying every troubleshooting tip I could find in the comments (adding water, changing pans, modulating heat), I finally went with the KAF buttercrunch recipe (adding water and corn syrup and NOT STIRRING until it reached temp) and had success. I can’t recommend this recipe 🙁
I’m so sorry to hear you experienced issues, Mariana. Can you please share what was going wrong as you made the toffee, as well as the brands of ingredients you used? I’d love to help troubleshoot!
good recipe but I found it does not take even close to 10 minutes for this to burn. even when I keep it on low it takes about 5 min and then if I leave it any longer it scorches within seconds.
I’ve made this recipe twice to use in the chocolate chip toffee brown butter cookies and the chocolate coffee toffee crunch muffins. I used a small to medium stainless steel frying pan both times, along with a candy thermometer, and a baking sheet lined with silicon liner. Have everything measured out before you start melting the butter. You are not going to be able to stop to measure out brown sugar or salt. I weighed the brown sugar, which I think is important since I bake a lot and my gut is to pack the brown sugar into the measuring cup. That way the brown sugar is loose is a bowl and not clumped together in the measuring cup. A digital thermometer works best for me. It did not take long for the mixture to quickly jump to above 305 and with the digital thermometer I was able to constantly monitor the temperature and could see the temperature increase. I whisked with a silicone whisk and it took less time than indicated. If you think the texture is not right, lift the pan off the heat and whisk vigorously, then return to heat until it hits the temperature range. Pour immediately and have a silicon scraper or spoon handy to scrape every drop. I had never had toffee before and wanted to make cookies for a dear friend. I took her the leftover toffee bits to sample before I made the cookie dough and she loved them and ate over vanilla ice cream. And the cookies and muffins were equally loved!
These toffee bits are fantastic- I have a favorite sourdough chocolate chip cookie recipe I like to add the bits to. I have made this recipe several times and I do have one very slight modification to help avoid separation of ingredients- I’ve found if I add all ingredients at once instead of melting the butter first, I have consistent success but when I melt the butter first, it separates and is unsalvageable. I have noted the comments to keep the heat low and that has also helped with consistency of results.
Hi! The recipe is great, i’ve made it twice alredy and use the toffee bits in homemade cookies and on top of ice cream or yogurt, and it’s amazing 🙂
I’m from France, so I used our local butter both times :
– first time, butter was 80% fat content, didn’t have any issue with separating
– second time, butter was 82% and it did indeed separate. Once I realised, I took it off the heat, whisked continuously while adding hot water, just a little at the time, until it reached the desired consistency (maybe 2-3 tablespoons in total?), then I put it back on the stove on medium-low heat and gradually increased until it reached the bubbling point, then followed the recipe steps, and it still turned out great!
Hope this helps other european folks ^^ Thank you !
Add water if using high fat butter
how much water should you add?