Like toffee and milk chocolate? Easy to make, easier to eat these gooey milk chocolate toffee bars are a perfect winter treat.

There are so many directions to go when developing a recipe – one bowl easy, lots of ingredients (yes, guilty) or several steps and lots of equipment.  This time I wanted to make a treat that could be baked in a hurry mostly because I wanted a treat, in a hurry.

Sometimes it is totally worth it to make things that take time say, chilling in the refrigerator for a few hours or forty days. Or making the first part and then the second part and then assembling 24 parts later on for a recipe that’s not all that. I know all about that.

So this is a toffee cookie bar with a little help from Heath and our favorite other thing in the baking aisle, milk chocolate chips. The brown butter is our only special-snowflake effort in preparing this recipe, but it’s well worth the flavor. Brown butter makes everything taste more. Yep. Just more.

This requires the entire 12 ounce  bag of mini Heath Bars or get a bunch of larger bars if you can find them. I like to buy two bags because noshing on some while chopping them makes the work less like work. The only waiting necessary is when it comes out of the oven and the chocolate has to set – you could speed it up by setting the bars in the refrigerator but that often changes the color of the chocolate. I like to just wait a half hour, call it done and eat some.

These are a great treat whether you slice them into 16 pieces or 32 small-bite pieces, and certainly a nontraditional way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Which is exactly what we like round here. Forget that box of chocolates (or do both) and make these toffee bars. Unpredictable holiday treats, as long as it involves chocolate is just fine with me.

And one more tiny piece of advice. Two bags of milk chocolate chips are always better than one because you know, noshing.