Crème Brûlée Toffee Chunk Cookies

Cookies//Homemade Toffee Chunks//Cream Cheese Buttercream//Torched Sugar Topping

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This cookie is… a lot. And I mean that in the best possible way. It’s over-the-top in the exact way you want a bakery-style cookie to be: thick, soft in the middle, crisp on the edges, and unapologetically loaded—with homemade toffee, a swirl of tangy cream cheese buttercream, and a brûléed sugar top that cracks when you bite in.

This cookie is meant to feel fun. It’s sweet. Sweeter than most things I make, actually—if you’ve made other recipes of mine, you’ll know I usually like to have a lighter hand with the sugar, and really balance it with other elements and flavours. Not here. This one is for when you're craving something big, bold, gooey, and indulgent. I was loosely inspired by the vibe of those oversized café-style cookies (you know the kind—big enough to share, not that you necessarily will), with that soft icing-on-cookie moment. Think a little Crumbl energy, but with a homemade twist.

I added cream cheese for tang to the sweet buttercream, torched sugar for crackle, and shards of homemade toffee to add depth and crunch. The result? A cookie that hits every texture you could want: creamy, chewy, crispy, gooey, crunchy, melty, and smooth. It’s a dessert disguised as a cookie. Or maybe the other way around.

Yes, it’s a little extra. But it’s also incredibly satisfying, and honestly, just fun to make. There’s whisking. There’s torching (!!). There’s breaking slabs of toffee into shards with whatever kitchen object brings you joy. And there’s the very important decision of whether to eat the whole cookie yourself or split it with someone you love. No judgment either way.

The cookie dough base here is one I’ve come to love and trust. It originally began its life as the “Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies” recipe from Handle the Heat. In a different recipe on my site—Toffee & Chocolate Chunk Brown Butter Cookies—I shared how I took her base and made some tweaks. That version became my go-to. This recipe uses a slightly tweaked version of that already-tweaked dough—so the base has got a bit of history. But the concept itself? This is a completely different cookie experience.

If you’ve been looking for a cookie that’s both nostalgic and surprising—one that takes all the best dessert elements and rolls them into one handheld, brûléed treat—this is it. I hope you have as much fun making (and eating) these as I did creating them.

Let’s bake.

Recipe:

Makes 13 large cookies

This cookie dough base recipe was slightly adapted from Handle the Heat.

Notes

• Make sure you read the "Important storage & planning note" at the tail end of the recipe before torching the sugar topping. This is because you may choose to hold off on torching some or all of the cookies until the day you're ready to eat them.

• I call for cold eggs because I don’t want to have to wait for the butter/sugar mixture to cool down before using, and the cold eggs help to cool it down more quickly. I specify to whisk in the vanilla extract before the eggs to somewhat cool it down before the eggs (there’s 3 tbsp of it which is quite a lot). And I also specify to whisk the eggs in quickly so that they don’t cook, as the mixture will still be warm.

• Absolutely don’t exceed 310 degrees Fahrenheit for the toffee, or it will start to burn. Similarly, don’t cook it for less than specified, as this will yield a granular toffee.

• If you have (high-quality!) caramels or even fudge on hand (YUM), feel free to use this instead of the homemade toffee.

• I specify the type of salt used, as different salts are more or less salty than others. If you don’t have the same kind of salt used, be mindful of this and adjust accordingly.

• If you happen to have vanilla bean paste, feel free to add some in (along with the vanilla extract). I love lots of vanilla in my cookie dough. I wouldn’t add any more extract in though, as it will thin the batter out too much. A totally unnecessary addition, but if you happen to have some, go for it!

• This recipe makes 12 large (85 g), and 1 jumbo (100 g), cookies!

• In her recipe post, Tessa specifies that the cookie dough needs to chill between 24-72 hours before using. And for sure, this will yield absolute perfection. But I have made these cookies many times, and through experimenting, my stance is: At minimum, refrigerate until the dough has hardened enough to form scoops. I prefer to make/typically make the cookie dough the night (or day) before I bake the cookies. This allows the depth of flavour and texture to develop. The absolute ideal is to refrigerate between 24-72 hours, but I typically don’t have time for that/don’t think that far ahead, so no stress to do this. Having tried them for all different chilling times, I don’t feel that the difference is extreme, but I do feel that chilling the dough overnight(so 8-9 hours) makes the biggest jump in terms of difference. So do with that as you will!

Toffee Chunks

Ingredients

• 85 g butter, any temperature

• 150 g brown sugar

• 3/4 tsp fine white salt

Instructions

1. Line a pan or cutting board with parchment paper.

2. Place butter in a medium sized saucepan, and melt over medium heat.

3. Add in brown sugar and salt. Whisk continuously until the toffee forms (the butter should be fully combined, and the mixture should appear homogenous), and a thermometer reads 295-305 degrees Fahrenheit. 5-10 minutes.

4. Pour the toffee onto the parchment paper, and ensure that it’s spread out to your liking. Let cool at room temperature until hard. [Go make the cookies during this cooling period, the toffee will be perfect once the cookie dough is made.]

5. Hit the toffee with a big knife, or whatever you’d like, to shatter it into chunks. I love this part, it’s so fun! Donezo.

Cookies

Ingredients

• 205 g butter, any temperature

• 190 g all-purpose flour

• 130 g bread flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 100 g white sugar

• 200 g brown sugar

• 1 1/4 tsp fine white salt

• 3 tbsp pure vanilla extract

• 2 eggs, cold

• 1 egg yolk, cold

• The toffee chunks (recipe above)

Instructions

1. Melt the butter (in a saucepan or the microwave). If you feel like going the extra mile, feel free to brown it - in this case start with 230 g, as some will evaporate.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, bread flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the white sugar, brown sugar, salt, and melted (or browned) butter. Then, whisk in the vanilla extract. Then, quickly whisk in the eggs.

4. Pour this wet mixture into the dry mixture. Whisk until combined.

5. Stir in the toffee chunks, using a spatula.

6. Cover the cookie dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to use. At minimum, refrigerate until the dough has hardened enough to form scoops. I prefer to make/typically make the cookie dough the night (or day) before I bake the cookies. This allows the depth of flavour and texture to develop. The absolute ideal is to refrigerate between 24-72 hours, but I typically don’t have time for that/don’t think that far ahead, so no stress to do this.

7. When ready to bake, remove the dough from the fridge - leave it at room temperature for 15-30 minutes, to allow the dough to soften enough to scoop.

8. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and ensure that 2 oven racks are positioned in the middle. Line 2-4 baking trays with parchment paper, just depending on your preferences outlined below (step 13).

9. Scoop then roll cookie dough into balls, 85 g each. Your last cookie will be closer to 100 g, so you will have one super-cookie!

10. Place the cookies on baking trays. Keep it to 3-4 cookies per tray, to avoid them melting into each other.

11. Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until the tops are golden. This will yield a perfectly crunchy exterior, and chewy + gooey centre.

12. Remove from oven. If you want to be a perfectionist (hi, this includes me!), grab a bowl that has a slightly larger circumference than that of the cookies. Place it on top of each cookie, upside down, and gently make swirling/circular motions on the tray. The cookie will hit the sides of the bowl, and this will bring in the edges, creating a perfect circle of a cookie! Boom.

13. Let the cookies cool on the tray for 3-4 minutes, then transfer them to cooling racks using a spatula. (You can either wait these 3-4 minutes and re-use the same trays for the next round of dough, or just line extra trays.)

14. Let the cookies cool completely as you proceed to making the cream cheese buttercream.

Cream Cheese Buttercream

Ingredients

• 80 g butter, room temperature

• 160 g cream cheese, room temperature

• 390 g powdered sugar

• 1/4 + 1/8 tsp salt (pink Himalayan)

• 2 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Place the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl. Beat on high speed with an electric mixer for 3 minutes.

2. Sift in the powdered sugar. Add in the salt. Beat on high speed for 3 more minutes.

3. Add in the vanilla extract, and beat on high for 1 more minute.

Assembly

You'll need:

• The cookies, fully cooled

• The Cream Cheese Buttercream

• A piping bag

• A small bowl of sugar - I used a very slightly coarser organic one, but regular white sugar will do

• Two spoons

• A kitchen blowtorch

Instructions

1. Fill your piping bag, and cut off the tip.

2. Pipe buttercream on the cookies, keeping in mind it'll melt outwards a little when you torch them, so don't go quite as far out as you want the final product to be. Smooth it with the back of a spoon.

3. For each cookie: spoon lots of sugar on top, over the bowl. Pat it into the buttercream with the back of a spoon. Then, tip the excess sugar off of the cookie, back into the bowl.

4. Brûlée the sugar with a kitchen blowtorch, working quickly to avoid melting the buttercream as much as possible.

5. Let the cookies cool for at least 20 minutes, as the buttercream will have softened a little from the fire. You can also place the cookie tray in the fridge to hurry up this process.

6. Enjoy!

Important storage & planning note: Because these cookies have cream cheese buttercream, it's best food safety practice to store them in an airtight container in the fridge if you're not eating them the day of or within 24 hours in a cool kitchen. Now, refrigeration will likely cause the crème brûlée topping to lose its crisp. So if you know ahead of time that not all of the cookies will be eaten on Day 1, and you don't want to lose the perfectly crackly topping, assemble the cookies up to the sugar layer, refrigerate, and then blowtorch the sugar the day you're serving them. You can also try re-torching them if you don't plan this ahead - they likely won't be perfect, but you can definitely make them a little crispier. And make sure to allow them to come to room-temperature or close-to before enjoying.

If your kitchen is cool, it should be fine to keep them at room temperature for up to 24 hours. The buttercream may soften slightly, and the sugar topping might absorb a bit of moisture. Again, for a freshly crackly top, you can assemble up to the sugar layer, and blowtorch right before serving, or just re-torch it for an imperfect but totally fine crackle.

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