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
- 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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!
- Cookie bar prep: Preheat the oven to 350F.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.