Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars

The Dallas Morning News and Central Market are promoting their Holiday Cooking Contest.  They recently published the first ever winner from 1996: Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars by VaRue Coley.  The ingredients seemed promising – kind of like a Nestle Tollhouse pan cookie with toffee.  Ain’t nothing wrong with that.  One bite and I knew why VaRue won!

If you want to enter this year’s cookie contest, check out www.dallasnews.com/cookiecontest

Another winner in my book is my mom.  Happy Birthday Mom!!!!

Ingredients:

Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars

1.      2 1/3 c all-purpose flour

2.      2/3 c firmly packed light brown sugar

3.      ¾ c (1 ½ sticks) butter or margarine

4.      1 egg, slightly beaten

5.      12 oz package semisweet chocolate chips

6.      1 c coarsely chopped nuts (I tried both pecans and almonds)

7.      14 oz Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk

8.      10 oz package toffee bits (Heath English toffee bits are 8oz packages so buy 2)

Preheat oven to 350.

In large bowl, stir together flour and brown sugar.  Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs (I “chopped” the butter into bit pieces first and then added to flour/sugar).  Add egg; mix well.  Stir in 1 ½ c chocolate chips and the cup of nuts.  Reserve 1 ½ c of the crumb mixture.

Press remaining mixture onto the bottom of a 13x9 inch greased baking p an.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from over and pour condensed milk evenly over crust.  Top with 1 ½ c of toffee bits (that’s about 1 bag).  Sprinkle reserved crumb mixture and remaining chocolate chips over top.  Bake for 30-35 more minutes or until golden brown. 

Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining toffee bits.  Cool completely.  Cut into bars.