Toffee coffee bars offer ooey-gooey caramel goodness in a finger-licking good cookie bar, perfect for your Santa cookie plate.
Toffee Coffee Bars
By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime
Toffee Coffee bars are my recipe of the day with the blogging group Sunday Funday. We get together once per week to post on various food topics. We are posting this week on cookies for Santa.
I first made these delicious cookie bars way back in 2002. They were like sinful turtle brownies with a cup of latte stirred right in.
There are 2 key words for everyone to remember about this recipe: no leftovers! Have some warm on vanilla ice cream. To die for.
They must have really made an impression on me because I often crave them. Many times when I make some recipe off the internet, I will have forgotten it totally by next week. But not these. I first made these eighteen years ago! Well. There you have it.
Sunday Funday
Cookies for Santa
- Culinary Adventures with Camilla: Aztec Blueberry Linzer Cookies
- Food Lust People Love: Brown Butter Shortbread
- Our Good Life: Chocolate Chunk Shortbread with Sprinkles
- Sneha’s Recipe : Eggless Nankhatai
- Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies with Nutella Filling
- Cooking With Carlee: Krumkake
- A Day in the Life on the Farm: Macaroon Kiss Christmas Cookies
- Making Miracles: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies
- Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Salted Honey Pecan Thumbprint Cookies
- Palatable Pastime: Toffee Coffee Bars (You are Here!)
Toffee Coffee Bars
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Toffee Coffee Bars

Toffee Coffee Bars
Equipment
- double boiler
Ingredients
Crust:
- 15.25 ounce box yellow cake mix
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 1/4 cup cold water mixed with 1 tablespoon of instant espresso
- 2 cups chocolate chips
- 2 large eggs lightly beaten
Topping:
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 32 Werther's baking caramels unwrapped
- 1/4 cup cold water mixed with 1 tablespoon instant espresso
- 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 cup chopped pecans divided
- 2 regular sized chocolate-covered English toffee bars chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Butter or grease an oblong cake pan.
- Stir together the cake mix, oil/butter, one-fourth cup espresso, chocolate chips and eggs until smooth.
- Press half of the cake dough into the pan (I found that spritzing a spatula with PAM spray helps the process).
- Bake the cake layer for 8 minutes, then remove from oven.
- Meanwhile, set up a double boiler and heat the butter, caramels, rest of the espresso, and condensed milk over low heat until the caramels melt and the mixture is smooth, whisking frequently.
- Pour caramel mixture over the baked cake layer.
- Using two teaspoons, dot the top of the caramel with dollops of the remaining cake dough.
- Sprinkle the top of that with chopped toasted pecans and chopped candy bars.
- Bake for an additional 25-30 minutes or until the cake batter part tests clean with a toothpick (if you stick it in the caramel part it will loo sticky, so be careful).
- Allow it to cool to just warm, then slice into squares and run a knife around the pan edge. Then cover with foil and let it cool completely before removing from pan.
- Store in an airtight container with waxed paper separating the bars.
Notes
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Palatable Recipes
This recipe had been updated from 12.13.13
Oh my….these sound amazing. I can just imagine them warm with that scoop of ice cream. YUM
I love when a recipe genuinely becomes a family favorite and stands the test of time! These have all my favorite flavors!
I can see why these are so memorable! Ooey Gooey HEAVEN!!!
My mouth is watering just thinking about so many of my favorite flavors in one bar. They look so good!
These sound amazing! Warm with vanilla ice cream sounds killer good.
Okay. Yum! My teeth were aching just looking at them though. LOL.