Creamy, buttery vegan toffee topped with salted nuts and vegan dark chocolate. This sweet and salty treat is totally over-the-top decadent and perfect for the holidays.
This vegan toffee is the best thing you’ve ever tasted. It’s buttery, sweet and melts in your mouth!
It’s also packed with roasted salted nuts and topped with vegan chocolate, and more nuts.
It’s the most decadent over-the-top dessert and totally perfect for holiday season.
Have you ever made homemade vegan toffee before?
This was a first for me. And I have to admit I was surprised at the whole experience. My idea of toffee before was the chewy stuff, whereas this is more like brittle.
Toffee Apples?
I always used to call my fudge flops ‘toffee’. You know when you try and get the perfect crystallized sugar for old fashioned fudge but it goes wrong somehow and you end up with something very soft and chewy? That’s what I always called toffee.
But that’s not what toffee is all about. Think of toffee apples. The toffee on top of the apple is hard. Yep, that’s what we have with this vegan toffee.
Toffee vs Brittle
This toffee is a little softer than brittle, you cook it up to the ‘soft crack’ stage on your candy thermometer (a candy thermometer is a must for this recipe).
Whereas brittle usually cooks up to the hard crack stage.
So it’s a little softer and it melts in the mouth with a very slightly chewy texture right at the end. When it’s mostly melted away in your mouth and there is a small amount left, that can be a little chewy, but on the whole, you won’t notice a big difference between this and brittle.
If you want a great vegan brittle recipe, then you should definitely try our vegan peanut brittle.
This vegan toffee recipe also uses a whole lot more vegan butter than brittle does! So it’s super buttery and creamy.
How To Make Vegan Toffee
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
As you can see I tried really hard to photograph the process in detail!
Jaye set up the camera above the stove and just snapped pics the whole way through because I could not stop stirring, not even for a second.
Some people say you can just stir it every minute or so, but I don’t trust that method!
I am very wary of candy making and don’t feel safe to take my eyes off it for a second. I am a believer in the keep stirring all the way through method. This is how I make my vegan honeycomb and now it’s how I make toffee too.
I did try different things with this toffee but this version was the absolute best.
I tried a version that was just vegan butter and sugar and that flopped completely. The butter and sugar separated and would not come back together!
And then I tried a version with water rather than soy milk and that worked well, but the color was much lighter and the end result was less creamy. So I definitely prefer this version with soy milk.
If you have an issue with using soy milk though, then I would recommend trying it with water.
Okay so let’s go through the steps.
- Add vegan butter, sugar, syrup, soy milk and salt to a large heavy bottomed pot and turn the heat to medium/high.
- Stir constantly as the butter and sugar melts. When melted, add your candy thermometer into the pot.
- Keep stirring as it comes to a boil and then keep stirring.
- Keep stirring all the way until your candy thermometer registers that you have reached the ‘soft crack’ stage or 285°F (137°C).
- Once your toffee has reached the soft crack stage you immediately remove it from the heat and pour it out onto a parchment lined baking sheet and smooth it down quickly with a spoon. I used a half sheet baking sheet because this is a large piece of toffee.
- Then you throw on the nuts and press them down on top.
- Quickly melt your vegan chocolate and smooth it down over the top of the toffee and nuts. And then throw some crushed mixed nuts on top of the melted chocolate.
- Place it all into the fridge to set. Once set, break it into pieces.
- I found that the longer it stays in the fridge, the better it gets. So when it’s ‘just’ set it’s not quite as tasty as when it’s been in the fridge for a good few hours.
So, this was my first go-round in making proper vegan toffee, but I have been making candy for a long time. I’m a massive fudge fan, the kind of fudge that you make on the stove and bring to soft ball stage and then beat until it sets.
I’ve made a LOT of that kind of fudge over the years. And that process is similar to this.
And I’ve also made vegan brittles. So what seems easy to me, may not be easy at all and I must just point it out that you may find this recipe a bit intimidating the first time you make it.
But that’s why I’m going to try and give you as many tips and tricks as I can think of so that it works out great the first time you make it and every time thereafter.
Must-Have Tools For Making Vegan Toffee
Candy Thermometer:
The first thing you need is a candy thermometer. You absolutely cannot make this without one. If you don’t have one, then order one now. You can get one on Amazon. And hold off on making this recipe until it arrives.
There is just no way to be accurate about the temperature and know when you’ve reached soft crack stage, without it. Don’t listen to any recipe that tells you to judge it by color or how it feels when you stir it, it’s not possible.
Heavy Bottomed Pot:
The next thing you need is a heavy bottomed pot. Don’t try and do this in any lightweight pot. You need it to have a heavy thick bottom.
If you use a pot with a thin base, it will easily burn your toffee, you need a pot that is heavy duty and can withstand a very high heat.
Basically, it should be the kind of pot that when you pick it up you complain that it’s quite heavy and your arms are getting tired.
Wooden Spoon:
And then you need a wooden spoon to stir with, and a nice well rested arm because you’re going to stir like crazy!
Tips For Making The Best Vegan Toffee
Have everything ready to go when you start. Don’t start the toffee until you have the following things in place:
- You need your half sheet baking pan lined with parchment paper (or a silicon mat) ready for you to pour out the toffee.
- You need your candy thermometer ready to be placed into the pot as soon as everything is melted and starting to come to a simmer.
- You need somewhere to put your candy thermometer and wooden spoon once they come out of the pot (covered in toffee) when the toffee is ready to be poured out onto the parchment lined half sheet pan. I just put a side plate nearby for this purpose.
- You need some oven gloves ready so you can safely grab your pot (it will be ridiculously hot) and lift it up so that you can pour the toffee out onto the parchment lined half sheet pan.
- You need the nuts weighed and measured out and ready to go on top of the toffee.
- You need the chocolate to be weighed and measured out and broken into pieces in a microwave safe bowl so you can quickly melt it and pour it over the top of the toffee and nuts.
- You need some nuts already crushed up and ready to sprinkle on top of the melted chocolate once that has gone on top.
Once you start making the toffee, you won’t have time to go and fetch things so have it all ready before you start.
You Will Love This Vegan Toffee
It is so decadent. There are few things in life as decadent as this toffee! It’s over-the-top decadent, and that’s a great thing. It’s perfect for special occasions, when over-the-top decadence is not an option but a requirement.
It’s wonderfully sweet with a hint of salty. The main flavor is sweet, but we have used some salt in the recipe and then there is the roasted salted nuts as well, so the flavor is very well balanced between salty and sweet.
It’s creamy and buttery. Oh my, is it ever!
It’s topped with salty nuts and rich vegan dark chocolate! Nuts and chocolate together are already one of my favorite things, now put that on top of delicious creamy buttery hard toffee and you have pure bliss.
The color is so beautiful. It’s this gorgeous amber color, it really looks as good as it tastes.
More Decadent Vegan Desserts
- Vegan Peppermint Bark
- Vegan Chocolate Truffles
- Dairy-Free Fudge
- Vegan Coconut Truffles
- Vegan Chocolate Pie
- Vegan Chocolate Peppermint Fudge
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Toffee
Ingredients
For the Vegan Toffee:
- 2 cups Vegan Butter (450g)
- 2 ½ cups White Granulated Sugar (500g)
- 1 Tbsp Golden Syrup or Maple Syrup
- 1 cup Soy Milk (240ml)
- 1 tsp Salt
For the Topping:
- 1 ½ cups Mixed Roasted Salted Nuts (195g) plus more to crush up and sprinkle over the top of the melted chocolate
- 10.5 ounces Vegan Chocolate or Chocolate Chips (300g) Melted
Instructions
- Have your candy thermometer nearby before you start and have the nuts weighed out and ready to be added. Break up the chocolate and add to a microwave safe bowl and set aside to melt later.
- Prepare a half sheet baking pan by lining it with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.
- Have some oven gloves nearby ready to grab when you need them, as well as a side plate to place your candy thermometer once you remove it from the pot.
- Add the vegan butter, sugar, syrup, soy milk and salt to a large heavy bottomed pot and turn the heat to medium/high.
- Stir constantly as the butter and sugar melts. The sugar will make a scraping sound as you stir it in the pot, when the scraping sound disappears your sugar is properly melted.
- When your ingredients are melted, add in your sugar thermometer.
- Keep stirring as it comes to a boil and keep stirring all the way through until it registers ‘soft crack stage’ or 285°F (137°C).
- Immediately turn off the heat, remove the candy thermometer and then grab your oven gloves (the pot handles will be hot) before lifting up the pot and pouring the toffee out onto your parchment lined baking tray.
- Use a spoon to spread it out a little (very quickly).
- Then grab your mixed nuts and throw those over the top of the hot toffee, using the spoon again to press them down into the toffee.
- Quickly melt your chocolate in the microwave by microwaving for 30-second intervals and then bringing it out to stir, then putting it back in for another 30-seconds until melted.
- Pour out over the top of the toffee and nuts and smooth down with a knife.
- Sprinkle some crushed mixed nuts over the top of the melted chocolate.
- Place the whole tray into the fridge for a few hours for the toffee to set.
- Break into pieces.
- Keep stored in an airtight container in the fridge where it will stay good for weeks!
Notes
- If you don’t like soy milk, you can switch for water, but it does result in a slightly less rich toffee and a lighter color, but it’s still very good. I have not tested this with any different plant milks other than soy.
- Prep time does not include time spent setting in the fridge.
- Depending on how big or small the pieces are you could get 20 serves from this or 40. One batch we broke off smaller pieces and got 40 pieces and another batch they were bigger so we had 20 pieces. It is very rich, so smaller pieces are likely better.
- Keep it stored in the fridge (covered) for up to 2 weeks.
I was wondering if this could be used to pour over saltine crackers to make that kind of toffee too?
Hi Pamela, I haven’t made saltine cracker toffee so I’m not 100% sure, but from a quick look around it seems like that is a different type of toffee.
Do you think it’s possible to sub half the butter for peanut butter to make a peanut butter toffee like a butterfinger?
I’m really not sure!
Thank you for this recipe, I’m very excited to try it! I am wondering- will cacao butter work here as well?
🙏❤️
Hi Tammi, I have never tried cacao butter but I wouldn’t think so.
Thank you for the quick reply!
I made this yesterday. I didn’t have a candy thermometer but I matched the colour of the toffee to your picture and it turned out AMAZING!! Thank you for this simple yet delicious recipe!
Oh awesome, so glad it worked out!
This is a great toffee recipe. Easy to make, great instructions to get the perfect texture. I do want to warn others about something I learned however. My first attempt was with Earth Balance original flavor baking sticks (fresh bought) and the end result was a fishy taste as part of the first initial bite. After researching to see if anyone else experienced this, I found several users had similar experiences and one even mentioned that it’s not recommended to heat EB because off flavors occur. Several other users said the omega 3 in EB is what causes the fishy flavor. I’m trying again tomorrow with another brand- hoping for a less fishy outcome.
Thanks for sharing Kirsten!
Lovely recipe! I used unsweetened almond milk and it worked great. Mine spread out more than yours did and took up the majority of the baking sheet. I ended up with a ton! Very yummy!
Fantastic! The more the better. Thanks for the wonderful comment and review Jessica!
Wonderful recipe! I am going to get a candy thermometer so I can do it properly next time. This time I just put little drops off to the side as the sugar was cooking and once one of them hardened I took the rest off the heat. I also used a mix of oat milk and oat cream, which worked nicely. I sprinkled some salt on top after the final layer og chocolate and nuts, and that was very good. Thank you so much for a great recipe with very helpful descriptions and pictures!
So glad it worked out great Katharina! Thanks so much for taking the time to leave such a great comment and review.
Hello! Can you please recommend some Vegan chocolate which would work best? Appreciate it!! Can’t wait to try making this!!
It really depends on where you are in the world, as to what is available. Vegan chocolate chips are also great to use, if you have them available. Otherwise any dark chocolate that is vegan by ingredient (it might not say it’s vegan on the package), and that tastes good, will work great.
Hi can i use oat milk instead?
Probably but I haven’t tested any other plant milks other than soy.
Just made this with unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Came out great. I’ve always made it without milk. This method came out great and tastes so creamy.
So glad to hear you enjoyed it Sue! The plant milk addition does make it a lot creamier. 🙂
I used full fat extra creamy oat milk due to soy allergy and it was sooo good!!! I also left off the nuts due to but allergies .
Any tips on how to prevent the oil from separating off the top? Just when it’s about done the sugar solids sink to the bottom and all the oil floats to the top. I can’t get it to come back together.
Hi Cara, sorry to hear this happened! One of the ways to prevent this is to use a heavy bottomed pot so that it heats more evenly, and also to stir constantly. You can also try to fix this by removing it from the heat and stirring constantly to get it to come back together. This article from The Spruce Eats may help as well.
I found that using a nonstick pan (mine is black in color) caused this to happen to me several times. When I use one of my silver colored pots (which are sturdy), I don’t have the separation issue.
Amazing results. Served this after a holiday dinner and everyone, vegans and non-vegans alike could not get over how delicious it is!
Awesome! Thanks for the great review!
I’m so excited to try this! By vegan butter do you mean like an earth balance margarine?
Hi Jeneen, yes that’s exactly what we mean. Earth Balance will work great here. 🙂
simple and straightforward, I would use oat milk or coconut milk next time as it had a slightly toasted soy taste.