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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars — Thick, rich, decadent cookie bars made with chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, creamy sweetened condensed milk, and crunchy toffee bits! A FAST and EASY no mixer, one bowl recipe that is sure to impress friends and family! The bars also keep fresh for a long time and are a great make-ahead dessert or great for gifting.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars Recipe
If you’re a fan of rich, dense, decadent desserts, these homemade toffee bars are going to be a new favorite for you!
Although I can appreciate light and airy desserts, or those fancy and elegant desserts you may have after dinner in a restaurant where four people share a small ramekin and everyone takes two small spoonfuls and pretends they’re full, those aren’t my favorite types of desserts — these are!
These toffee bars are fast and easy to make, no mixer required, and made with very common fridge and pantry ingredients.
They’ll make you look like a star baker and are sure to impress friends and family when they sink their teeth into these thick bars.
The bars have a flour and brown sugar crust and there’s chocolate chips and peanut butter chips studded into the crust. Over the top there’s sweetened condensed milk, more chocolate and peanut butter chips, and toffee bits are the finishing touch.
I love the contrast between the dense crust, the more gooey aspect from the sweetened condensed milk, along with the crunch of the chips, and the crispness of the toffee bits, which are my favorite part of these bars.
They have a resemblance to 7-Layer Bars because of the layers, the chips, the sweetened condensed milk, minus the coconut.
Ingredients in Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars
For these simple, no-mixer toffee bits bars, all you will need are some common fridge and pantry ingredients to whip them up.
Take out the following:
- Unsalted butter
- All-purpose flour
- Light brown sugar
- Salt
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Peanut butter chips
- Sweetened condensed milk
- Toffee bits
How to Make Toffee Cookie Bars
Toffee bars with peanut butter chips and chocolate chips are a decadent treat but fast and easy to make. Here’s an overview of the recipe:
- Begin by combining softened butter with flour, brown sugar, salt, and cutting the butter into the dry ingredients.
- Add an egg, vanilla, and continue cutting the mixture together.
- Add half the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, mix to combine, reserve part of the mixture, and pack the rest into your prepared 9×13-inch baking pan and bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven, drizzle with sweetened condensed milk and the reserved mixture, top with most of the toffee bits and bake again, about 25 minutes.
- Top with the rest of the toffee bits and allow your chocolate chip cookie bars to cool well before serving them to your eager taste-testers!
Recipe Substitutions
What I love about making layered bars or gooey bars is the flexibility that exists with making tweaks to the ingredients you use.
For example, you may consider:
- Rather than using semi-sweet chocolate chips, use milk, dark, or chocolate chunks
- Instead of peanut butter chips, use white chocolate chips
- If you like nuts, use small diced walnuts in place of 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips
- Use half the amount of sweetened condensed milk and half dulce de leche
- Incorporate small-diced candy bars or candies such as Snickers, Milky Way, or Rolo and reduce the amount of chocolate and peanut butter chips
There are so many ways to get creative with this recipe and make it your own based on what you have on hand and what you and your family enjoy!
Are Toffee Bits Essential?
You can’t have chocolate chip toffee bars without toffee bits and so yes, they are essential!
They are commonly found next to the chocolate chips in the baking aisle of well-stocked grocery stores. You can of course order online if you have any doubts.
If you need more toffee bits recipes to make, check out my Graham Cracker Toffee Bars and my Toffee Almond Bars recipes. I just love toffee in all forms and especially in dessert bars!
Can I Halve This Recipe?
This homemade chocolate and peanut butter chip toffee bar recipe makes a 9×13-inch pan of bars.
They are thick, dense, rich, and super decadent. If you slice them very large like I did in the photos, you will yield 12 big bars. If you slice them more modestly, you’ll end up with 24 but they keep super well at room temp or you can freeze them.
I suggest just making the full amount of the recipe so you don’t have to halve 1 egg and halve 1 can of sweetened condensed milk. Give away to your neighbors or coworkers what you don’t need. They’ll love you forever.
However, yes if you absolutely want to, you can halve the recipe.
How to Store Leftovers
As tempting as it may be to eat these right out of the oven, I strongly encourage you to wait until they’re fully cooled before slicing into them.
Thanks to being a moist cookie bar recipe, these peanut butter chocolate chips bars will keep airtight at room temp for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 4 months.
Tips for Making Toffee Bars
Read the recipe once before beginning: Sounds obvious, but it’s not to some people. Pay attention to all of the little nuances and read the recipe well, so you don’t accidentally skip a step, combine things when they shouldn’t have been, or bake it incorrectly.
This is a very easy recipe, but just take care that you don’t get ahead of yourself and work too quickly and miss something as I outline below.
Three divided ingredients: – The chocolate chips, the peanut butter chips, and the toffee bits are divided. Meaning you don’t add them all at once, at the same time in the recipe. Make sure to read through the recipe once before beginning so you don’t accidentally goof.
Crust mixture: Part of the crust also gets set aside and reserved for later and becomes a topping, too.
Split baking time: You bake these easy chocolate chip peanut butter toffee bars for 1o minutes at first and then another 25 minutes afterwards.
Cool the bars: It’s also imperative that you allow your homemade toffee bars to cool and set up properly before slicing into them. I recommend at least 90 minutes to 2 hours, but you can definitely make these a day ahead and allow them to set up overnight.
Good keepers: As I already said, they keep extremely well at both room temp and in the freezer. However, these dessert bars are so addictively good I don’t think you’ll have leftovers lingering.
Great for gifting: Because the cookie bars do keep so well, they make a great hostess gift, thinking-of-you type of gift, or as a holiday cookie exchange recipe!
More bars and blondies: Be sure to check out all my other Bars and Blondies recipes below the recipe card section. I am a huge fan of desserts like these and have made tons of versions and variations over the years!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), very well softened to room temp
- 2 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
- 1 cup peanut butter chips, divided
- 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 1/4 cups toffee bits, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and spray a 9×13-inch pan very well with cooking spray (optionally use nonstick foil, sprayed with cooking spray for easier cleanup); set aside.
- To a large bowl, add the butter, flour, brown sugar, salt, and with a fork, cut the butter* (See Notes) into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles sandy crumbs with a few larger crumbs; the mixture will seem very dry at this point which is normal.
- Add the egg, vanilla, and continue cutting and mixing them in with your fork**.
- Add 1 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup peanut butter chips, and cut them in with your fork.
- Set aside and reserve 1 1/2 cups of this chip-and-dough mixture.
- Transfer the remaining amount of the chip-and-dough mixture to your prepared baking pan, and pack it into a smooth, even, flat layer to form the crust.
- Bake for 10 minutes; rotating once midway through is recommended.
- Remove pan from the oven, and to the warm crust, immediately and evenly drizzle the sweetened condensed milk over the top.
- Evenly sprinkle the reserved 1 1/2 cups of the chip-and-dough mixture over the top.
- Evenly sprinkle 1 cup of the toffee bits over the top.
- Evenly sprinkle the remaining 1 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup peanut butter chips over the top.***
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the top looks set in the center and a few large bubbles are boiling up intermittently to the surface, randomly spaced over the top; rotating your pan midway through is advised. The bars do set up dramatically as they cool so don’t be alarmed if they seem very loose upon pulling them from the oven, they will firm up.
- After pulling the bars from the oven, evenly sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup toffee bits.
- Allow the bars to cool, in the pan, at room temp, for at least 90 minutes before slicing and serving. However, if you have more time, allow them to set up for additional time. I usually give them 2-3 hours before slicing and serving; and cooling overnight is just fine; cover them if you’re going to let them set overnight. Bars will keep airtight at room temp for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 4 months. They are great make-ahead dessert or dessert to gift because they stay fresh for a long time.
Notes
*Make sure your butter is very well softened to room temp, at least 60 minutes, or this will be much more difficult and not advised.
**You are cutting in, not stirring in (which is why you’re not using a spoon) nor beating the mixture (which is why you’re not using a mixer); just cut the mixture with your fork, turn the crumbs over with the fork until the mixture is “combined” although it will still be dry.
***It does look like a lot of chips, but they do sink and melt down during baking so don’t be alarmed that there appears to be almost too much at this point.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
24
Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 366Total Fat: 19gSaturated Fat: 11gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 44mgSodium: 114mgCarbohydrates: 47gFiber: 2gSugar: 36gProtein: 5g
More Easy Bar Cookie Recipes:
Caramel Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Gooey Bars – Keep the napkins handy for these soft, gooey bars dripping with the best caramel-peanut butter sauce! So good!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Nutter Butter Bars – Soft bars loaded with chocolate and Nutter Butters! You’ll be in PB HEAVEN!
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars — These peanut butter chocolate bars are loaded with chocolate chips and creamy peanut butter. This is a one-bowl dessert you’re bound to love!
Triple Peanut Butter Monster Cookie Bars – Peanut butter is used 3 different ways. Great for pantry odds-and-ends cleanout
Peanut Butter Caramel Twix Bars – Buttery, snappy, creamy, smooth, peanut buttery, dense, rich, gooey, velvety, and chocolaty. They’re like a marriage of Peanut Butter Twix and Tagalongs, in bar form, and they’re irresistible!
Chocolate Chip Rolo Cookie Bars — Gooey caramel, chocolate chips, and buttery soft dough!! Easy, one-bowl, no-mixer recipe that’s a guaranteed hit! Who can resist caramel and chocolate!!
Nutella-Swirled Peanut Butter Chip Blondies – Dense, rich, and fudge-like! Can’t resist Nutella!
Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Crumble Bars – Tastes like peanut butter cookie dough studded with mini peanut butter cups! Heaven in your mouth!
Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars — So much better than a bowl of plain oatmeal!! Easy, portable baked oatmeal bars perfect for snacks or breakfast on-the-go!!
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