TOFFEE BARS GET A LITTLE TIPSY
You can always swap out the nuts or the chocolate, but don’t ever leave out the bourbon
These bar cookies are everything. They’re loaded with texture, flavour and just enough salt to make them addictive.
They’re packed full of pecans, toffee bits, chopped white chocolate and dried coconut. But the sprinkling of bourbon is what really takes them over the edge.
The flavours come together and deepen, with the bourbon accenting and accentuating the buttery vanilla and caramel notes. This is a brownie for people who don’t like chocolate and that is how I came to make it.
My friend David was coming to dinner and I wanted to make a homemade sweet to go with his favourite store-bought dulce de leche ice cream. Ordinarily, brownies of some sort might come to mind. But David is not a fan of chocolate, so I thought about a blond brownie filled with coconut and pecans.
I added the toffee bits because I have had great success with them. They melt into the batter as it bakes, leaving behind a more complex sweet caramel flavour that elevates a simple butter, flour and sugar cookie. Finally, I chopped up a bar of good white chocolate to add more texture and another flavour to the bar.
The beauty of these bars is that you can add a different nut (toasted hazelnuts or walnuts) and different chocolate (a combination of chocolates or even butterscotch morsels would work well).
I like to chop a high-quality chocolate bar into pieces instead of using morsels because the flavour melds into the bar seamlessly where the morsels are sometimes too much — too sweet and too large — which upsets the ratio of batter to add-ins.
The only add-ins that I wouldn’t change would be the toffee bits and the sweetened shredded coconut. The coconut makes the texture of the bar cookie so much moister and chewier while adding to the complex flavour.
And don’t omit the bourbon. That addition makes all the difference in the world. In the same way that a splash of bourbon or wine enhances savory foods, these bar cookies are so much better for the bourbon.