Chocolate Covered Butter Toffee Squares are a delicious confection that you can enjoy as a snack or a dessert. Living in Japan, I find that many Japanese cookies, pies and pastries are not as sweet as what you find in the US. Toffee is certainly the exception. Made with butter and sugar, toffee is a sweet Candy treat and will satisfy any sweet tooth.
Traditionally, toffee is made with butter and sugar which is heated to the “hard crack” stage – over 300 degrees F. This makes the toffee brittle and hard. For this recipe you have the option to make the coffee just a bit softer and cook it to only the “soft crack” stage, where the toffees come out a little more chewy although they still can be cut into bars or squares.
Toffee is delicious with or without nuts. You can sprinkle almonds, pistachios, cashews, walnuts, pecans, chestnuts, or even macadamias on top or sprinkle them on the bottom of the pan before pouring in the toffee to harden, as I do in this recipe.
My recipe for Chocolate Covered Butter Toffee Squares uses unsalted butter. Salt is an important flavor in toffee but too much can overpower the taste, so if you would prefer to use salted butter you can – just omit adding the extra salt into the toffee mixture while heating.
Toffee squares taste exactly like Heath or Skor Candy Bars, but the texture is quite different depending on how hot you heat the sugar. Hard toffees are brittle and need to be scored before cooling to cut into squares, whereas toffees cooked to the soft crack stage a chewy and can be cut after cooking. The taste is almost the same- the difference is in the texture.
When I cook up of batch of these I make plenty so I can freeze them. These bars are delicious fresh from the freezer and they are crispy and crunchy. Store them in an airtight container and they will keep in the freezer for up to six months!
And if these are too sweet for you, try topping them with dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate to eliminate some of the sugar.
Try these amazing toffees and let me know what you think in the comments below.