The perfect sweet and salty snack! Salted hazelnut toffee bark layers together toasted hazelnuts and melted dark chocolate over homemade toffee.
Simple to make and super satisfying!
Salted hazelnut toffee bark makes for great homemade gifts, especially during holiday season.
These delicious treats go by many names. You may know them as English toffee, caramel bark, chocolate covered praline bark.
Essentially, this sweet treat is a layering of hard toffee, luscious chocolate, and chopped nuts.
Hazelnut toffee is absolutely delicious on its own. However, they become even more amazing when topped over vanilla ice cream or chopped and tossed into fresh made buttery popcorn!
Easy English Toffee Ingredients
This recipe only requires a handful of ingredients. Therefore, it is important to use high quality ingredients to ensure the hazelnut toffee has the best flavor.
- Hazelnuts : Also known as filberts. Roast and skin whole or halved hazelnuts. Then, roughly chop. Swap in your choice of nuts such as pecans, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, or macadamia nuts.
- Chocolate : The recipe works best with dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate. The toffee needs the slight bitterness of dark chocolate to offset the overall sweetness of the treat.
- Butter : Ideally, it is better to use unsalted butter. That way, you are able to control the amount of salt in the recipe.
- Sugar : Use plain, regular granulated white sugar. The sugar will be melted and heated until caramelized.
- Vanilla : Opt for high quality pure vanilla extract, vanilla paste, or scrape the insides of half a vanilla pod.
- Maldon Salt :This gourmet salt is known for its clean flavor and large crunchy flakes. You may also use fleur de sel or other salt sea flakes. This type of salt is far less salty than traditional table salt, iodized salt, or kosher salts.
Tips for Success
- Here’s my NUMBER 1 tip- get a proper kitchen thermometer!
A reliable thermometer takes away all the guess work. You can clearly see when the sugar mixture is done cooking.
I recommend this candy thermometer (also labeled as deep fry thermometer). It’s great for candy and caramel making, as well as for deep frying!
I also highly recommend this Thermapen. I use it for candy making, grilling, bread making, and more.
- Have your mise-en-place ready
Mise-en-place translates to “everything in its place.”
It is important to have all your ingredients and components ready before you begin cooking the toffee.
Dark Chocolate vs Milk Chocolate
This recipe works best with dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate.
Toffee is simply a mixture of butter and sugar. As such, it is rich and sweet.The toffee needs the slight bitterness of dark chocolate to offset the overall sweetness.
You may certainly use your choice of chocolate. Milk chocolate and white chocolate does work.
However, keep in mind that the resulting English toffee will be much, much sweeter with milk chocolate or white chocolate.
Swap in your favorite nuts or toppings
Customize the English toffee with your choice of nuts. Chocolate and hazelnut pair wonderfully together (think Nutella!)
Any nut works. Chocolate is great with pecans, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, macadamia nuts, etc.
Make a tropical version by topping the toffee with macadamia nuts, sweetened dried coconut flakes, and some chopped dried pineapple pieces.
A summer time road trip version would be great topped with granola and dried fruits.
A winter holiday version could include chopped peppermint (or candy cane) along with chopped almonds.
More Homemade Food Gifts
- Caramel Pecan Bark
- Peppermint Bark Marshmallow Cereal Bars
- Chocolate Marshmallows
- Dark Chocolate Almond Joy Truffles
Salted Hazelnut Toffee
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup hazelnuts , (220 g) skinned, toasted and roughly chopped
- 1 ½ cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips , (255 g)
- 1 cup unsalted butter, (113 g)
- 1 cup granulated sugar, (200 g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste, or high quality pure vanilla extract
- Maldon salt or fleur de sel, as needed
Instructions
- Line a 9” by 13” baking sheet tray with parchment paper.
- In a small sauce pot, melt butter over medium heat. Turn off heat and add sugar. Stir to combine. Heat mixture over medium-high heat until butter-sugar solution reaches 300°F on a candy thermometer.
- In the meantime, sprinkle ½ cup of chocolate chips and ½ cup of toasted, chopped hazelnuts onto prepared parchment paper.
- Once butter-sugar solution has reached 300°F, remove from heat and let cool for 3 minutes. Stir in vanilla paste. Then pour over chocolate/hazelnut on the parchment lined sheet. Let cool for 5 minutes
- Pour remaining cup of chocolate chips over parchment. Let chips sit for a couple minutes until slightly melted. Using an offset spatula, spread chocolate into an even layer. Sprinkle remaining chopped hazelnuts on top. Sprinkle maldon salt or fleur de sel as desired. Let sit at room temperature until chocolate sets. Once chocolate and toffee have cooled, cut to your desired shapes and sizes.
Notes
- You may certainly use your choice of chocolate. Milk chocolate and white chocolate does work. However, keep in mind that the resulting English toffee will be much, much sweeter with milk chocolate or white chocolate.
- Customize the English toffee with your choice of nuts.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature away from heat or direct sunlight. Will keep fresh for about a week.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate & comment below!
I haven’t made toffee in years but your recipe has me tempted to again make some. It looks wonderful and the sea salt is a marvelous addition. This is my first visit to your blog, so I took some time to browse through your earlier posts. I’m so glad I did that. I really like the food and recipes you share with your readers and I’ll definitely be back. I hope you have a great day. Blessings…Mary
Thanks for visiting, Mary! I’m happy that you found me. Have a great week. Hope to hear from you again! :)
This looks wonderful and addictive! Can you tell me about Vanilla Paste? I’ve never heard of it.
Thank you, Donna! Vanilla paste is one of my favorite secret weapons. Vanilla paste is a thicker form of vanilla extract. It includes real vanilla beans, so you get the speckle of vanilla bean seeds in your baked goods. A tablespoon of vanilla paste is equivalent to 1 vanilla bean in a recipe. Its a little more expensive than vanilla extract but an excellent cheaper alternative to actual vanilla beans.
Congratz on getting 100+ followers! :]The toffee looks amazing. But, I think it’s a tad more amazing that I haven’t had toffee before since last year, on Halloween! This will surely be made sometime.
Thanks, Kathy! No toffee since Halloween?! That’s a long time ago. Better make some soon :)
looks so tasty and satisfying! beautiful photos.
Thank you, Lannie!
Oh my. I actually started to DROOL whilst looking at these photos. Thanks for the addition to my weekend to-do list…
Lol. Happy toffee making this weekend :)
I love love love toffee! Adding the salty hazelnuts is the perfect touch. Congrats on 100 followers!
Thanks! I never thought I’d hit the triple digits! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll eventually hit quadruple digits :)
I have never made this but I sure have enjoyed eating it! Someone usually brings some at the holidays, so it is a rare treat. Perhaps St Patrick’s day is a great day to make some for me and give some as gifts. Saving this delicious recipe, thanks for posting. Today sounds like it has been a close to perfect day for you, perhaps it is a preview to be followed by more special days!
Thanks, Tina! Yes, today has been quite lovely. I look forward to days like this :) Hope you enjoy your weekend!