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.
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.
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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.
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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.
DELICIOUS DESSERT RECIPES
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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.
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
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