Are you a fan of Twix candy bars? These Homemade Twix Bars are just a variation on my time-tested Best Millionaire’s Shortbread: Shortbread cookie layer, covered with rich caramel and topped with chocolate.
This recipe for Homemade Twix Bars is gleaned from ground-zero for shortbread – Scotland. The story goes that shortbread evolved from the practice of baking any leftover bread scraps in a low oven until it was crispy. Eventually, sugar was added, and yeast was replaced by butter.
There are variations – some use all-purpose flour in toto. Some use a mixture of wheat and oat flour. In many ways, it seems to depend on what you want to do with it . . . Are you serving it as a stand-alone cookie, or are your using it as a foundation for something else (as I am here)?
Tips for Perfect Homemade Twix Bars
In the past, I made these into the traditional Millionaire’s Shortbread bars, but the last time I made Twix cups using a silicone mini-muffin pan to make them easier to handle. I find the most difficult part of the entire recipe is cutting the bars into clean, attractive pieces. Popping them out of a cooled silicone muffin pan was so much easier!
Either way you choose to do it, this Millionaire’s Shortbread recipe makes a great shortbread – crisp, but not too crumbly – covered in homemade caramel and rich, dark chocolate. A small piece goes a long way.
I used 1/2 regular flour and 1/2 white whole wheat flour, with rice flour to round it out. The shortbread is baked a bit longer than traditional shortbread to increase the crispiness, balancing out the smooth caramel.
Interested in the origin of Scottish shortbread? Check out this great article from Historic UK: The History of Scottish Shortbread.
The original recipe is in metric measurements, so I’ve translated it to English weights. These are mostly weights, not volume, so you’ll need to weigh the amounts on a scale to get the proper ratios. You really should have a kitchen scale among your tools. Here’s a good selection from Amazon to check out. You can change it from English units to Metric very easily:
Best Millionaire’s Shortbread
Ingredients
Shortbread:
- 7 oz Plain flour, or 200 grams I used 1/2 plain, 1/2 white whole wheat flour
- 3.5 oz Rice flour, or 100 grams Gluten-free flour can be substituted
- 3.5 oz Sugar, or 100 grams
- 7 oz Butter (about 14 tbsp), or 200 grams softened, but not melted
- 1/4 tsp salt
Caramel:
- 6 oz Butter, (about 12 tbsp), or 175 grams
- 6 oz Sugar, or 175 grams
- 2 fluid oz Golden syrup, or 60 milliliters See below how to make Golden Syrup
- 1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk, or 400 grams
- 1/2 tsp salt
Chocolate Topping:
- 7 oz Dark Chocolate, or 200 grams Or any other chocolate you prefer. Dark chocolate helps cut down the sweetness of everything else.
Instructions
Shortbread:
- Heat oven to 350F or 175C
- Grease an 8″X8″ or 20cm square baking pan, including the sides all the way to the top.
- Mix the shortbread flours, sugar and salt in a large bowl with a whisk. Cut in the butter and mix with your fingers until the mixture is a sandy consistency.
- Press the dough into the baking pan and pierce liberally with a fork. Bake at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges turn a golden brown. Set aside to cool.
Caramel Layer
- For the caramel, add the butter, sugar, condensed milk, golden syrup (click here to see how to make golden syrup) and salt in a medium, heavy pan and heat while stirring to dissolve the sugar.
- Bring this mixture to a simmer and cook for at least 15 minutes, or until a candy thermometer reads 250F, or 120C. The sugar will caramelize into a medium brown color, and the mixture will thicken. You don’t want it too thick to pour, however. (It’s best to err on the thicker side, as the bars can be difficult to cut if the caramel is too soft.)
- Pour the caramel over the cooled shortbread and let this cool in the fridge for an hour or so.
Chocolate Layer
- Melt the chocolate in a double-boiler or in the microwave and pour over the cooled caramel. I gave this a little blast in the refrigerator to set the chocolate, then turned the whole thing out on a cutting board. I cut the bars into 1″ pieces and wrapped each one in waxed paper for candy bars.
For Millionaire’s Cups
- Instead of using a square pan, I used two silicone mini-muffin pans.
- First, I pressed the shortbread dough into each cup and baked normally. I had to rotate once in the oven as the outer cups were getting a bit more browned than the inner. It might be better to bake one pan at a time.
- Then I prepared the caramel and transferred the hot mass to a Pyrex measuring cup to allow for more precise pouring into the mini-muffin cups. Be very careful as the caramel is extremely hot!
- Finally, I melted the chocolate and spooned it over the cups. I wanted a round “dot” in the middle, rather than filling up all the way to the edges. Into some of the cups, I first pressed a toasted pecan.
- Let the cups cool in the fridge for 30 minutes or so, and they pop out easily! I wrapped in simple foil squares.
Notes
If you enjoy this recipe, why not try another? Dwaine’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies are always a hit – chewy and full of chocolate flavor.
Tried it? Let me know how it worked for you by leaving a comment below.
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Thank you for this amazing step by step tutorial of this nice recipe, You must have put in a lot if energy in putting this down and I sincerely appreciate that. Though this is the first time of coming across Twix bars I will try to get the necessary ingredients and try it out. But my only concern is the sugar content because i don’t take much sugar.
Wow, good review on this article homemade twix bars. Today is about learning how to bake shortbread and the steps are very easy to follow. One thing I like about this article is that you will be the one to prepare it to your taste and the ingredients are readily available and rich in nutrients. Thanks for this sumptuous delicacy review. Good job here.
Thanks for this your food tutorial. Although I’m new to this kind of recipe but your explanations has but been very helpful. So I believe I can prepare some home made home made prix bar. I want to ask can adults take this because it may be sugary considering all the ingredients that shall be added to it to garnish it. I’m talking of adults of age 60 and above?
Thanks
Well, I’m 59 and I do enjoy them once in a while! Mostly, though, I give them as gifts to friends and neighbors, so I don’t worry about my blood sugar too much. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Don,
Thanks for sharing the recipe for homemade Twix Bars. I’m a foodie and i love to prepare a lot of homemade foods, but honestly, this is my first time of reading about Twix Bars as it is not a common snacks in my country. This will definitely be a game changer for the little snack bar am planning to start before the year runs out.
Your exuberance is refreshing as I do enjoy reading your blogs, keep up the good works
I’m glad to introduce something new! I hope you enjoy them. And thanks for following my blog!
Thank you so much for the Twix Bars recipe. Your article is very clear to follow with images. I love making sweets. I will definitely try your Twix Bars recipe. I am going to bookmark your website for future recipes. I hope that you will write more recipes. Good Luck!
The recipe sounds heavenly! As a mother of 4, I am always on the lookout for different and new homemade treats. The recipe contains quite a lot of sugar, is there any substitute that can be used? I am trying to reduce my family’s intake of sugar as I’m pretty sure they have way over their limit. Thanks for a great recipe!
I guess I take a different approach to sugar. There are sugar substitutes out there to use, but I have yet to find one that a) bakes correctly and b) sets up correctly. And you have to do both here. For the shortbread, you need the sugar to carmelize a bit to hold the bread together. And with caramel – I don’t think there’s any non-calorie sweetener that will set up as caramel.
I choose to limit sugar intake by creating smaller portions. Growing up, that’s what my mom used to do, too – with five kids to feed, she had to! Using the silicone mini-muffin cups will yield smaller pieces that perhaps you can regulate a bit better. Thanks for the comment!
I love chocolate, I love Twix, my God what a great Recipe to do; I am even scared to prepare it because I am not sure I would want to share it with anyone.
This might be a bit of a tricky question, do you think I could follow all the instructions but turn it into a Vegan recipe since I am a Vegan? I will try to find the subsite for everything and let you Know! Thank you for the great idea anyway!
I always hesitate to say “yes, you can make it Vegan” because it always gets me into trouble! There doesn’t appear to be one clear definition of what makes something Vegan. But I do know that there are a lot of recipes out there that use coconut milk or soy milk in place of cow’s milk for making the caramel. And for the shortbread, you could substitute a Vegan spread for the butter, and it would probably work fine. Otherwise, that’s it – not a lot you would have to do.
Hey there!
Wow! I’m not into cooking and baking, but with these recipes, I’m thinking of giving them a try 🙂 Homemade Twix bars? As many as you want with a fraction of the cost? Count me in! Next time you make some, please send me some to try. I’m dying! Really!
Thanks for giving us an appetite for sweets and the way to satisfy it 🙂
Marios