Salted Toffee Cookie Bars

24 Servings
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Refrigerate 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour

Salted Toffee Cookie Bars are made with a simple, buttery sugar cookie base, chocolate and caramel topping, and a sprinkle of sea salt.

These sweet and salty cookie bars are the perfect dessert to enjoy with your family, bring to a potluck, or serve up at a party. Try our Apple Crumb Bars, Oatmeal Jam Squares, or Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie Bars for more crowd-pleasing Bar Recipes

Salted Toffee Cookie Bars close up of square

Salty Toffee Cookie Bars are the perfect sweet, buttery, slightly salty treat. You won’t be able to get enough of all the layers of dessert goodness. It’s the perfect blend of sweet with just a hint of salty that absolutely melts in your mouth. Once you’ve given it time to cool, the amazing dessert slices into easy squares perfect to serve a big group. 

The layers of cookie, caramel candy, and chocolate make toffee cookies amazing. Starting with the Sugar Cookie base is the perfect foundation for the recipe. Because the buttery cookie is so simple it lets the flavors of caramel, chocolate, and flaky salt shine. 

Sweet and salty Toffee Cookie Bars are great for holiday baking. If you want to get some of your desserts done ahead of the season, you can bake Salted Toffee Cookie Bars as usual. Then seal them in a freezer bag to keep them frozen until you’re ready to serve them. It’s a great way to get your baking done months in advance and have the time to enjoy the season. 

Salted Toffee Cookie Bars collage

BAR RECIPES

KEY INGREDIENTS

  • Sugar cookies: The base of the recipe is made with super simple ingredients. Just combine eggs, sugar, butter, flour, and a few other standard pantry ingredients to make the easy sugar cookie layer. 
  • Caramel: For the toffee topping, you need soft caramels and heavy cream. By melting and stirring the ingredients together, you get the perfect rich and creamy toffee topping to pour over the cookie base. 
  • Chocolate: After baking the toffee, you just add chocolate chips to the top. The heat will cause them to melt, so you can spread them into the perfect chocolate layer. 
  • Salt: Finally, the recipe is finished with coarse sea salt to add amazing salty contrast to the super sweet ingredients.

COOKING TIPS

  • Prep time: Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Then spray a 17×12-inch cookie tray with nonstick baking spray. You can also line the sheet with aluminum foil and spray the foil to more easily remove the Toffee Squares later. 
  • Cookie layer: Add the unsalted butter and sugar to a standing mixer, and set the mixer speed to medium until the mixture is creamed. Then add the eggs and vanilla extract, continue mixing until blended. Sift the dry ingredients into a separate bowl, then add them to the stand mixer, and mix at low speed until combined. 
  • Baking time: Press the cookie dough into the base of the prepared baking sheet. Put the dish in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. Take it out when they’re lightly golden brown. Let the warm cookie base cool completely before you add the toffee topping. 
  • Toffee: Add the caramels and heavy cream to a saucepan. Heat caramels at medium-low, stirring often until you have a smooth, creamy mixture. Remove from heat, and allow the caramel to cool for 2 minutes. Spread it over the cooled cookie base. Pop the dish in the oven to bake for 5 minutes.
  • Chocolate: Take the dish from the oven and top it with chocolate chips while it’s still hot. Allow the chocolate to sit and melt for 2 minutes, then use an offset spatula to spread the chocolate over the top. Sprinkle flaky salt evenly over the top.
  • Refrigerate: Put the Salted Toffee Cookie Bars in the fridge for 20 minutes before slicing into squares and serving. 
Salted Toffee Cookie Bars in pan being cut after cooling

VARIATIONS

  • Chocolate chips: This recipe calls for either milk or semisweet chocolate chips. The semisweet is a good option if you like a slightly more bitter option, but you can take that a step further by using dark chocolate for the topping. 
  • Toffee oatmeal cookie bars: For some extra texture combine 1 cup rolled oats, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, ¼ cup melted butter, and ½ cup brown sugar to a mixing bowl. Combine the oat mixture and sprinkle it over the toffee for a crunchy oat topping.
  • Salted toffee-chocolate squares: To add some extra chocolatey flavor, you can make the cookie base chocolate. Simply replace some of the flour with unsweetened cocoa powder. Add the cocoa powder slowly to make sure the flavor isn’t overpowering, and make sure you reduce the flour by the same amount so that you don’t have too many dry ingredients. 
  • Cracker base: If you’d prefer a homemade toffee candy to a toffee cookie, you can skip the sugar cookie layer and line the cookie sheet with saltine crackers. Cover the cracker base with the melted caramel, and be sure to let everything set before serving. 
Salted Toffee Cookie Bars cut into squares

DELICIOUS DESSERT RECIPES

HOW TO STORE

  • Serve: You can leave Salted Toffee Cookie Bars at room temperature for up to 1 week in an airtight container. However, if it’s too warm in your house the toffee topping will start to melt, so keep that in mind when you’re deciding how to store them. 
  • Store: You can seal squares in a zip lock bag or Tupperware to keep in the fridge for up to 1 month. 
  • Freeze: To freeze the Salted Toffee Cookie Bars, put them in a freezer bag with a piece of parchment paper between each layer so that they don’t freeze together. They’ll stay good for up to 3 months. 

Pin this recipe now to remember it later

Pin Recipe

Salted Toffee Cookie Bars

Salted Toffee Cookie Bars are made with a simple, buttery sugar cookie base, chocolate and caramel topping, and a sprinkle of sea salt.
Yield 24 Servings
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

Sugar Cookie Bars:

  • 1 1/2 cups butter , softened
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 5 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Topping:

  • 11 ounces soft caramels , unwrapped
  • 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 2 cups semisweet or milk chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Instructions

Cookie Bars:

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Spray a 17 x 12 inch baking sheet with non-stick or baking spray.
  • With a stand mixer on medium speed, cream butter and sugar in a large bowl.
  • Add the eggs and vanilla extract, until well blended.
  • Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.
  • Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until well combined.
  • Press into prepared baking sheet.
  • Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.
  • Cool completely, then top with salted caramel topping below.

Toffee Topping:

  • In a medium saucepan add the caramels and heavy cream on medium-low heat.
  • Stir often until smooth and creamy.
  • Remove from heat, let cool for 2 minutes, then spread over the cookie base.
  • Bake for 5 minutes.
  • Add the chocolate chips over the top and let sit for 2 minutes.
  • Spread chocolate with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon.
  • Sprinkle with sea salt.
  • Refrigerate for 20 minutes until chocolate has hardened before slicing.

Nutrition

Calories: 449kcal | Carbohydrates: 57g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 13g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 6g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 68mg | Sodium: 391mg | Potassium: 194mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 33g | Vitamin A: 463IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 48mg | Iron: 3mg
Salted Toffee Cookie Bars collage

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

Categories

Leave a comment & rating

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.