These Chocolate Toffee Cookies are special, though they may not look like it. They’re not frosted, painted, or blitzed in sprinkles. You can’t roll them out and cut them into fancy shapes. They’re not paleo (whatever that is) or gluten free. They’re made with old-fashioned, real ingredients. The kind your mother may have used. The outsides of these cookies have a slightly crisp crumb. The interior is provocatively fudgy– there’s not much more to say about them. They don’t have nuts or oats or any extra bells and whistles. Save one. Toffee. These cookies have a nearly undetectable nod toward the savory with the addition of toffee. They’re quite simply, the best cookies I’ve ever made.
Which kinda surprises me. After five (plus) years of pecking out recipes on this keyboard, I sometimes think bells and whistles are all I have left. That’s because finding something that surprises me isn’t as easy as you might think. To keep my belly full of surprises I often seek out new flavors, or try regional cuisines that you won’t find just anywhere. Do you remember my Pickled Quail? What about SPAM Sliders? I love stuff like that (I really do) and I guess I figure stuff like that will help my blog stand out in a crowd. I guess.
Chocolate Toffee Cookies
But sometimes the best recipes just prove that kind of thinking wrong. These simple Chocolate Toffee Cookies are full of surprises. They come from a recipe by Barbara Fairchild that’s been passed around between food lovers for quite some time. She was with Bon Appétit for 32 plus years. She’s a cheerleader for the great city of Los Angeles (just like me). That’s bio enough in my book.
I don’t really know what she’s been up to lately. But these Chocolate Toffee Cookies are quite a legacy. That much should not be a surprise. GREG
The cookies can be prepared up to two days in advance; store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Ingredients
- ½ cup flour (scooped and leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 pound semi-sweet chocolate (chopped)
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- 1 ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 5 (1.4 oz) Chocolate covered toffee bars (such as Heath) roughly chopped into bits
Directions
Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl; whisk to combine.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water; stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool to about body temperature.
Meanwhile, use an electric mixer to blend the sugar and eggs until thick and creamy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture and the vanilla. Using a rubber spatula fold in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in the toffee bits. Cover and chill until firm, at least 45 minutes and up to overnight.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 or 3 rimmed baking sheets (depending on size) with silicon mats or parchment paper. Drop 18 ¼‑cup rounds of batter onto the baking sheets, spaced at least 2‑inches apart. Bake until the cookies look dry and uniformly cracked across the surface but still soft in the center; about 15 minutes.
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets.
Seriously, who needs bells and whistles with amazing ingredients like these? These are just the kind of cookie that grabs my heart.
An aside — I got Savory Cocktails in the mail on Thursday and am enjoying it immensely. For the color (and rhubarb) the Lillet punch may come first. But the Breeder’s Cup sounds so intriguing… I Look forward to swilling my way through the book.
These cookies look perfect. 🙂
Perfectly wonderful! No need for “bells and whistles.” I’m a huge Barbara fan myself and loved the mag best during her reign!
Off to buy some Heath bars.…everything else I’ve got.
It is pretty hard to find a surprising cookie these days that isn’t decked out in craziness. But maybe that means it’s even more surprising to taste something that’s not? These sound super!
Super cookies. Just the sort I like. Thank you. And speaking of SPAM (well, you did bring up the subject!), one of these days I need to write about my recipe for SPAM croquettes …
“Provocatively fudgy”. I love that. And yes, with some cookies you need no bells and whistles!
Yay! REAL cookies. I love it.
Hey, who needs sprinkles when you’ve got something like this? They sound great to me. In fact they remind me a little of a cookie I used to make back in the eighties. They were quite chocolatey, and like these, had little flour resulting in a seriously high fudge factor and a bit of espresso powder. Darn tasty they were, I’ve always loved Heath Bars, but never used them in baking. This one goes on my must do list.
Greg, shall I send you my address so that you can send a batch my way?
Gorgeous and just what I want to make today, once I finish a long-looming demanding project. Late in the day. Plan is to eat some and mail some to wonderful daughter at college. WIll not notify her of same until I find strength to pack them up and send them out. Ability to act wisely ebbs with stress. We’ll see. But thank you for these. And I have semiboneless quail in the freezer, and some of them will be pickled in the next little while.