These soft and gooey toffee cookies are made with crunchy homemade toffee bits and pools of dark chocolate, finished with a sprinkle of flaky salt. They're classic chocolate chip cookies, elevated!
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Notes from the baker
I never knew I needed toffee in my cookies until I tried these toffee cookies. The glassy crunch they add to the cookies is so satisfying and it's actually so easy to make!
I also love a cookie recipe that uses melted butter to make it easy peasy, especially when there are other components to make like the toffee, so that's what I did here.
This is a truly decadent cookie with just a simple addition of toffee to elevate the flavour and texture.
Why you'll love this recipe
- Soft chocolate chip cookie base. Even without the toffee, this is a great basic chocolate chip cookie recipe that can be used time and time again.
- Crunchy toffee bits. The homemade toffee pieces give these cookies a satisfying crunch and caramelized flavour.
- Gooey pools of melted chocolate. The chopped chocolate chunks from a high quality chocolate bar will give you those incredible chocolate pools.
Tools
- Small saucepan - You'll need a saucepan to cook the toffee on the stovetop.
- Baking sheet - Any baking sheet or baking tray will do for cooling the toffee and for baking the cookies.
- Electric hand mixer (optional) - This recipe can be made using a whisk and spatula or a hand mixer and spatula. It's up to you! Since we're using melted butter instead of softened butter, it doesn't make a big difference which one you use.
- 4-tablespoon cookie scoop - I almost always use a large cookie scoop to portion out my cookies evenly and in the perfect shape without any mess. A 4-tablespoon scoop is my preferred size and I wouldn't use anything smaller than a 3-tablespoon scoop unless you want to make mini cookies. I prefer my cookies large and bakery-style!
Ingredient notes
As always, the full recipe card with ingredient amounts and instructions is at the bottom of this post! Keep reading for more details on each ingredient or skip ahead to the recipe.
- Unsalted butter
- Brown sugar - Brown sugar is the main base of the toffee. We're going to cook it until it reaches a candy stage and becomes a hard candy once cooled.
- Salt
- All-purpose flour
- Cornstarch - This is my favourite "secret" ingredient to making cookies softer.
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Granulated sugar
- Egg - This should be at room temperature before adding it to the dough to prevent the butter from solidifying on contact.
- Vanilla extract
- Dark chocolate - I prefer using dark chocolate in all my chocolate chip cookies to balance out the sweetness. Roughly chop the chocolate into various sized pieces, plus a handful of extra pieces to press on top of the cookies.
- Flaky salt - I can never have a chocolate chip cookie without sprinkling it with flaky salt! The touch of saltiness makes such a big difference in how it tastes.
Tips for making the best toffee cookies
- Cook the toffee until it looks like melted peanut butter. Smooth and thick but slowly oozes off the spatula. If it separates, just take it off the heat and stir vigorously until it comes back together.
- Don't overmix the cookie dough. Stop mixing when the dough is almost combined and switch to a spatula to prevent overmixing the dough which can create denser cookies.
- Press a few extra pieces of chocolate and toffee on top of the cookies. This really helps to showcase the chocolate and toffee chunks otherwise they get lost in the cookies and aren't as visible.
- Use a large cookie cutter or upside down bowl to scooch the cookies into perfect circles. These cookies can spread quite a bit and end up in irregular shapes because of all the mix-ins. I love using this scooching technique because it creates perfectly round cookies every time and helps give them a crinkled look.
- Chill the dough for thicker cookies. You can bake these cookies right away but if you find that they're spreading too much, chilling the dough balls after you scoop them can help them stay thicker. It's also helpful if you want to bake the cookies off at a later time or the next day.
Storage
These toffee cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days. Enjoy at room temperature or warm them up in a toaster oven or microwave for soft cookies with melted chocolate.
These cookies can be frozen in an airtight container or freezer bag for up to 1 month. Thaw at room temperature.
Frequently asked questions
Baking by weight is much more accurate than volume. When using US standard cups, ingredients like flour and sugar can easily be overpacked into the cup causing you to add too much of certain ingredients. Recipes with weight measurements are also easier to scale to smaller or bigger batches without dealing with weird fractions. To measure by weight, you simply need a kitchen scale which you can usually pick up for less than $20.
Small measurements are given in tablespoons and teaspoons because most kitchen scales are not accurate under about 10g. Tiny amounts like a ¼ teaspoon may not register accurately unless you have a drug scale. Mixing these measurements is a common practice among other recipe sites and commercial kitchens.
More cookie recipes to try
- Pistachio Cream Cookies
- Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Chip S’mores Cookies
- Matcha White Chocolate Cookies
Recipe
Toffee Cookies
Equipment
- 1 electric hand mixer, optional
Ingredients
Toffee
- 115 g unsalted butter
- 200 g brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
Cookies
- 180 g all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 115 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 50 g brown sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 75 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped, plus extra for topping
- 75 g toffee pieces, plus extra for topping
- flaky salt, for sprinkling
Instructions
Toffee
- Cook: In a small saucepan, add the butter, brown sugar, and salt. Heat on medium heat until the butter has melted. Turn the heat up to medium-high and simmer, stirring often, for 6-8 minutes or until it looks like the consistency of melted peanut butter.
- Cool: Immediately pour the toffee onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Let the toffee spread and settle into a flat layer and allow it to cool until hardened.
- Break: Once hardened, use the end of a metal spoon or a mallet to strike the toffee until it breaks into small pieces. Set the toffee pieces aside for later.
Cookies
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Dry mixture: In a small mixing bowl, stir together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Wet mixture: In a large mixing bowl, add the melted butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Use a whisk or hand mixer to mix well. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.
- Combine: Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and fold together with a spatula (or continue to mix with a hand mixer) until just barely combined with some flour patches left. Add in the dark chocolate and toffee pieces you made earlier. Fold together until incorporated and just combined.
- Scoop cookie dough: Use a 4-tablespoon cookie scoop to scoop the cookie dough and release them onto your lined baking sheet, leaving about 2" in between each cookie for spreading. Press a few extra pieces of chocolate and toffee on top of each cookie dough ball.
- Bake: Bake cookies for about 11-12 minutes. In the last 2 minutes of baking, you can press a few more pieces of chocolate and toffee on top of each cookie for a nicer look. Immediately after taking them out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter or small bowl that's slightly larger than a cookie and swirl each cookie around inside it to push the sides in for perfectly round cookies. Finish each cookie off with a sprinkle of flaky salt.
- Cool: Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10-15 minutes as they will still be quite soft before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Toffee: This recipe makes enough toffee pieces for about 2-3 batches of cookies. You can either halve the recipe to make less or save them in an airtight container for another batch of cookies or for snacking!
Afton says
I made this just the other day and I am not being dramatic when I say these changed my life. I think I will only ever make cookies this way ever again.
Afton says
These are DIVINE