These gooey and “buttery” vegan butterscotch cookie bars feature a layer of Biscoff cookie spread, molten chocolate, and deliciously sweet and salty dairy free butterscotch sauce all baked in a soft chocolate chip cookie bar!

sliced cookie bars on parchment paper

If you love butterscotch and you love chocolate chip cookies, then let me present to you your latest obsession: the Biscoff butterscotch cookie bar.

These unbelievably vegan (i.e. dairy free!) butterscotch cookie bars are the definition of indulgence. We have:

  • “Buttery” soft cookie base: This is based off of my classic vegan chocolate chip cookies, but made a bit firmer to hold all of our filling. It’s so easy, you only need a whisk!
  • Biscoff cookie butter spread
  • Vegan chocolate chips
  • Rich butterscotch sauce: This is all dairy free and unbelievably reminiscent of butterscotch- honestly you’d never know!
  • Extra chocolate chip cookie and Biscoff cookies on top!

You’re just going to love these cookie bars!!

stacked vegan butterscotch cookie bars

This was my biggest struggle. I waffled between a toffee sauce (which was too thick) and even considered a caramel sauce (though it is delicious), but I wanted something a bit different.

Butterscotch seemed to be the move, as it’s relatively quick (way quicker than either toffee or caramel), beginner friendly, and I could find ways to thicken it.

As you might have gathered if you’ve ever baked with caramel, it typically dissolves into the baked good as it bakes…or it pools out.

gooey butterscotch cookie bars on parchment paper

So we had to thicken the sauce. But rather than cook out butterscotch sauce even more (which would lead to toffee), I decided to use flour, a trick I learned from Butternut Bakery, but I later realized is a very common tip! Here are my tips:

  • Cook the butterscotch for only 5 minutes: This prevents turning the butterscotch sauce into a hard candy (and therefore toffee).
  • Add the flour in while the butterscotch is hot: And keep whisking until fully dissolved.
  • Cook the butterscotch first: This will give it time to cool a bit before pouring on top of our chocolate chip cookie bars!

And the best part- if you want to make these vegan butterscotch cookie bars gluten free as well, you can do so by skipping the Biscoff, and adding gluten free flour to thicken our butterscotch sauce!

Overview: how to assemble Biscoff butterscotch cookie bars:

butterscotch sauce cooling
We’ll first start with the butterscotch sauce. This is simply cooking the vegan butter, brown sugar, vegan heavy cream, and golden syrup together until boiling for 5 minutes. Then we’ll stir in the flour, and let it cool while we make our cookie dough.
cookie dough without chocolate chips
For this step, we’re simply making the cookie dough but omitting the chocolate chips for now. It’s easier to spread the cookie dough on the bottom without the chocolate chips!
baked cookie bar base
Spread half of the cookie dough onto the bottom of the pan, and bake for 12 minutes.
layering the biscoff cookie butter and chocolate chips on the base
Then we’ll spread the cookie butter on top, followed by the chocolate chips and our butterscotch sauce.
butterscotch cookie bars before baking
Mix in the remaining chocolate chips to the cookie dough, and top the bars with the cookie dough and extra biscoff cookies. Then we’ll bake for another 25-27 minutes!
sliced vegan butterscotch cookie bars
Finally, allow the cookie bars to cool for an hour or two- you can speed up the time by placing them into the fridge. Sprinkle with sea salt, slice and serve!

Absolutely! If you really want the Biscoff flavor in there, you would need to make a homemade gluten free vegan Biscoff cookie butter (I’ve tested with this one before in previous recipes).

Otherwise, you can omit the cookie butter all together, and just swap in a gluten free flour mix (such as King Arthur measure-for-measure gluten free flour), and make sure you use it in the butterscotch sauce as well!

sliced cookie bars on parchment paper

Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!

Gooey Vegan Biscoff Butterscotch Cookie Bars Pinterest pin

If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!

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stacked cookie bars

Gooey Vegan Biscoff Butterscotch Cookie Bars

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 2 reviews
  • Author: Britt Berlin
  • Prep Time: 30
  • Cook Time: 40
  • Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
  • Yield: 9 1x
  • Category: Cookies
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: American
  • Diet: Vegan
Print Recipe

Description

These gooey and “buttery” vegan butterscotch cookie bars feature a layer of Biscoff cookie spread, molten chocolate, and deliciously sweet and salty dairy free butterscotch sauce all baked in a soft chocolate chip cookie bar!

Ingredients

Scale

Butterscotch Sauce:

  • 1/2 cup (100 g) brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup (120 mL) vegan heavy cream
  • 4 tbsp unsalted vegan butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 2 tbsp (30 mL) golden syrup, corn syrup, or brown rice syrup
  • 2 tbsp all-purpose flour or gluten-free 1:1 baking flour

Cookie Bars:

  • 2 cups (250 g) all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour , sifted and spoon & leveled*
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted vegan butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
  • 1/2 cup (100 g) organic granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup (150 g) light brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup (85 g) dairy free yogurt or unsweetened applesauce, room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup (170 g) vegan chocolate chips
  • 1 bar vegan chocolate, chopped
  • 3/4 cup Biscoff spread
  • 3–4 Biscoff cookies, crumbled

Instructions

  1. Prep: We’ll first start with the butterscotch sauce, then move onto the cookie bars. Line an 8×8 pan with parchment paper on both sides, and set aside.
  2. Make the butterscotch sauce: In a medium saucepan, heat the vegan butter until melted. Then add in the brown sugar, vegan heavy cream, sea salt, and golden syrup. Stir to combine. Then bring the mixture to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes. This will help to thicken our butterscotch sauce. You can scrape down the sides as needed, but you really don’t need to stir anything here!
  3. Stir in the flour: After 5 minutes, remove the vegan butterscotch sauce from the heat, and add in the vanilla extract and the flour. Use a whisk, and whisk the two into the butterscotch until the flour has completely dissolved.
  4. Cool the butterscotch: Once mixed, pour the butterscotch sauce in a separate baking tray (different from the one that is lined). This will help expedite the cooling process of the sauce! Now we can make the cookie dough!
  5. Cookie bar prep: Preheat the oven to 350F.
  6. Make the cookie dough: In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted vegan butter, sugar, brown sugar, dairy free yogurt, vanilla extract, and sea salt. Then add in the flour and baking soda, and use a silicone spatula to fold the dry ingredients into the wet.
  7. Press half the cookie dough into the parchment paper lined-baking pan: We haven’t added in the chocolate chips yet, so don’t worry. Press half of the chocolate chip-less cookie dough into the bottom of the pan, and spread it to the edges of the pan. I like to work it up the walls just a bit to create a cavity for the biscoff butter, chocolate chips, and butterscotch sauce.
  8. First bake: Then place the pan into the oven to bake for 12 minutes. After 12 minutes, remove the pan from the oven, and let cool for 5 minutes. If the cavity of the cookie bars got a bit puffy, you can lightly press it down with the back of a spoon.
  9. While baking: Add in 1/4 cup of vegan chocolate chips and the chopped chocolate bar to the remaining dough in the bowl, and fold the chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
  10. Fill the cookie bars: Once cooled, spread the biscoff cookie butter on the bottom, followed by 3/4 cup of the vegan chocolate chips. Spread the chocolate chips on top of the cookie butter evenly. Then pour the cooled butterscotch sauce on top of the chocolate chips.
  11. Top the cookie bars: Then take the remaining dough, and top with dollops of the dough on top of the butterscotch. I like to flatten the pieces down a bit to help cover more surface area. I also like to press the dough around the edges to keep any butterscotch sauce from pooling out of the sides! Then top with broken pieces of Biscoff cookies if desired.
  12. Second Bake: Bake the cookie bars for 25-27 minutes, or until the cookie on top is lightly golden and no longer super soft. Remove from the oven.
  13. Cool: Cool the cookie bars for 1-2 hours. You can place the cookie bars into the fridge after they’ve cooled at room temperature for 30 minutes to speed up the cooling time.
  14. Top, slice and serve: Sprinkle additional flaky sea salt if desired, slice, and serve!

Notes

Gluten free: You can skip the biscoff all together, and just make these butterscotch cookie bars! Use a gluten free flour (I use King Arthur Measure-for-Measure gluten free flour) for the cookie portion and the butterscotch portion.