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.
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 (make sure to use American unsalted butter – European butter has too much butterfat and the toffee will separate)
- Light brown sugar
- Salt
Why American-Style Butter Only?
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 and unfortunately, we have yet to find a way to make this recipe work with butter containing higher percentages of fat. If you are successful in creating a hard toffee using European-style butter, please let us know in the comments below.
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:
- Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins
- Salted Caramel Toffee Cupcakes
- Caramel Apple Streusel Pie
- Toffee Brownies
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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, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the sugar and salt 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.
Is It ok to use swerve brown sugar in this recipe?
Hi Sheryll! No, I don’t believe that will work. This recipe is very specifically written as toffee can be a finicky beast! Sugar substitutes typically won’t perform the same way as real sugar, especially in toffee/caramel/butterscotch and such, that are based entirely on the structure and moisture that only real sugar can provide. Feel free to experiment and see what happens, and let us know how it goes!
Would using dark brown sugar affect this recipe?
Hi Jessica! We haven’t tried that, and the extra moisture content in dark brown sugar may prevent this toffee from setting properly. Feel free to try it out if you’re in the mood to experiment, but we recommend sticking with light brown sugar for best results 🙂
I had diy brown sugar (1 cup sugar to 2 tbsps molasses) on hand, so I gave it a shot. It worked well!
I’m not sure how long it takes for the butter to incorporate with the light brown sugar recipe, but it took at least 3 minutes here. Had me worried for a moment. But it all came together.
The toffee is very tasty! I look forward to trying the cookies I put it in in a few days!
So glad it worked well and tastes great, Jessica!!
if I only have European butter how can I make toffee bits?
Hi Claudia! We have not found a way around this ourselves, unfortunately! You’re more than welcome to experiment and see if you van get it to work with butter you have available, but we haven’t personally heard of too much success using butter much past 80% butterfat 🙁
These were unbelievably easy to make and so delicious! I didn’t have a candy thermometer. I just held my instant read thermometer in the saucepan from time to time to check the temp and it worked great!
So glad to hear that, Esther!!
This looks delicious & I came across your recipe bc I want to make saltine toffee bark (sometimes called Christmas crack) with a thick layer of crunchy toffee & no chocolate – so just a layer of saltines with the toffee on top. Do you think this recipe would work for that? All the actual recipes for it never have a thick enough layer of toffee & add chocolate on top.
Hi V! We haven’t tried that, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work! Let us know how it goes if you give this a try 🙂
These toffee bits taste really good and were easy to make. I don’t have a candy thermometer so I just had to eyeball it…next time I would probably invest in one just to take the guesswork out of the equation. I think this would be a great recipe to have a video of – the pictures were helpful but any time I have to make decisions based on consistency I get nervous going of a description or still image. Still would recommend and it’s nice to know I have this option – I can get toffee bits in my area but they aren’t always easy to find.
Also FYI to other bakers – I initially took it off the stove too early and it didn’t harden, it was more like a chewy caramel candy. I just peeled it off the parchment and put it back in the pan to remelt and it worked like a charm! So if you make the same mistake I did, all is not lost!
Hi Monica! There is a recipe video on the post – almost right at the top, just below the heading that says ‘Recipe Video’. Don’t click the button right at the top that says Watch Video – those buttons aren’t working right now and we are working on fixing them, so in the meantime, just scroll down a teeny bit and you’ll see it! I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed these toffee bits! 🙂
I tried to make this two times and it was a flop both times.
The brown butter toffee cookies are great, but I will have to just continue buying heath brand toffee
Oh no! I’m sorry to hear you experienced issues, but hopefully I can help figure out what happened! What seemed to be the issue?
My toffee is still fairly soft after waiting for way more than 20 min. Did I do something wrong? Or can I just stick it in the freezer to harden more quickly?
Hi Amy! Unfortunately, if your toffee has not hardened within 20 minutes or so, it likely won’t harden at all, I’m sorry to say! It’s possible the mixture didn’t get quite hot enough. Alternatively, it could be an issue with your ingredients – primarily the butter you used. This recipe has not worked for our readers when using European-style butter, or butter that’s over about 80% butterfat content. The extra fat in these types of butter cause the mixture to separate, and/or prevents it from setting up correctly. Hopefully this toffee will still taste good enough to snack on for now, and I’m sure you’ll nail it next time! Good luck and happy baking 🙂
This happened to me too but I froze it and then it was super easy to smash to bits. It’s very warm here right now so I’m wondering if that’s part of the reason why it didn’t firm up.
Hello, I want to make this recipe but I only have access to 82% +butter, as I live in Europe. Is there something I can do to make it work? Thank you in advance!!!
Hi Persefoni! Unfortunately, we have not had success making this toffee with European-style butter at all 🙁 One of our readers recently mentioned that she had success using European butter, melting about 2 Tablespoons more butter than the recipe states, then, once melted, she carefully tilted the pan and skimmed 2 Tablespoons of the clear fat (ghee) into a separate bowl. We have not tested this theory at all, so I cannot speak to whether or not it works, but this reader says it worked for her! If you wish to roll the dice, you can give her method a try – otherwise, I would recommend researching another recipe, sorry! Good luck!!
Thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate it!
I see people using European butter have challenges in the fat separating. I live in Europe (the Netherlands) and was able to make the toffee successfully. I read you can add a little corn syrup as it apparently helps stabilize the mix. I used a Tbsp for this recipe and it worked ok. For those in the the Netherlands wondering where you can buy corn syrup, the local Asian markets (i.e. the Toko) and expat stores sell it.
Great tip!! Thanks so much for sharing – we’ll have to try this ourselves sometime 🙂
This really was as easy as the recipe describes! I bought a candy thermometer, which I’m glad I did because I’m not sure I would have known when it was done otherwise. I made this to make the toffee chocolate chip cookies, but here I am eating toffee by itself!
Can you make this with plant butter to make it dairy free?
Hi Jennifer! I’m sorry, we don’t with dairy-free substitutions, so I cannot tell you for sure – but I honestly doubt it would work! Feel free to experiment and give it a try, though!
We don’t have toffee bits where I live so I made these. turned out perfectly. Thanks for the recipe!
Yay! So glad to hear that, Denise!