Disneyland’s churro toffee is one of my favorite treats in the parks! If you know my mother and I we are Disneyland and Disney treat fanatics! Our churro toffee is a copycat recipe we came up with and it tastes just like the real deal—crispy buttery toffee with toasted almonds in it all coated in white chocolate and cinnamon sugar.
Churro Toffee at Disneyland
The last time I was at Disneyland I saw several of the candy makers making the churro toffee so I studied up on some of their techniques to make this toffee as authentic as possible! Here’s a picture of THE churro toffee straight from the glass case!
Where to find churro toffee at Disneyland
If you’re visiting the Disney parks soon you can find churro toffee at a few different locations in the parks in Disneyland you can find it at Candy Palace on Main Street and Pooh Corner in Critter Country. In California Adventure it’s available at Trolley Treats on Buena Vista Street. Don’t worry if you don’t have a ticket, you can also buy it at Marceline’s in Downtown Disney!
Making Churro Toffee
Toast the Almonds
Your first step to making this toffee is toasting the almonds. When you toast the almonds it brings out the nutty flavor and also makes them crunchier. If we didn’t toast them they might end up a little soggy tasting in the toffee. To toast the almonds you’ll simply bake them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 9-10 minutes. Keep your eye on them though, you don’t want them to burn! After they’re toasted, let them cool completely before chopping them up into little bits. You’ll then want to spread them out evenly across your lined baking sheet so that when you pour your toffee over top of the almonds they are evenly dispersed through out your toffee.
Boil it up: Making the Toffee
You’ll then add your butter, water, and sugars to a heavy bottomed pan and bring it to a boil. Make sure you stir it constantly, you don’t want any of it to stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. Boil it until your mixture reaches 300 degrees which is also called “hard crack stage.”
Pour and Slice Your Toffee
Once your hit that 300 degree mark you’ll remove your toffee from the heat, quickly stir in your baking soda, and then pour it over top of your chopped almonds. Use greased spatula to evenly spread the toffee across your pan, you want your toffee to be super thin! Look how thin the toffee is in the picture of my churro toffee from Disneyland is! To do this though you will need to work quickly as the toffee starts to set almost immediately.
Work Quickly--Cut that toffee immediately!
After you have spread your toffee across your pan, take knife and cut your toffee into nice even squares. You can measure if you like or just eyeball it. I got about 15 squares the same size as Disneyland makes their churro toffee.
Again, you’ll want to cut your toffee as soon as you’ve spread it across your pan because it sets so fast. And once it sets, it becomes much harder to cut and you’ll likely end up with some broken pieces. You’ll notice in the top left corner I had a piece that did not cut perfectly and broke, which isn’t a problem, I just coated the pieces individually and they tasted just as delicious!
Coating your toffee
To coat your toffee you’ll want to use something like these melting wafers or candy melts. Using chocolate chips isn’t a great idea, the chocolate is difficult to melt nicely, where as these wafers are designed to melt and look nice!
So, I watched them coating the churro toffee a Disneyland and they work gloves and used their hands to spread the white chocolate in a super thing layer across the toffee. However, if this sounds like a mess waiting to happen you can also just use a fork to help you dip the toffee into the white chocolate, just know the white chocolate might turn out a bit thicker. I found it easiest to use a microwave safe container that was large enough to fit the toffee pieces in, that way it is super easy to dip and coat your toffee but so you can also pop it back in the microwave if the white chocolate starts to get too thick while you’re working.
Churro time—getting that cinnamon sugar on it!
After you coat your toffee in white chocolate it’s time to get the cinnamon and sugar coating on it! At Disneyland they use a kind of “burying” technique. They have a large container of cinnamon and sugar and then they’ll plop their white chocolate coated toffee into it and cover it completely in cinnamon and sugar. They’ll let it sit their for a while they continue to work and then they’ll pull it out once the white chocolate has set.
Now for us, I’m not mass-producing churro toffee like Disney is, so making a giant tub of cinnamon and sugar isn’t realistic. But, I still did use their burying technique and found it be much more efficient at getting the cinnamon and sugar to coat evenly and stick to the white chocolate than some of the other methods I tried. But, because I can only put one piece of toffee in my churro sugar mixture at a time, I would bury each piece, let it sit for a minute or two until the white chocolate was sort of set and would then move it to another pan to cool and set completely.
Now eat up, enjoy, and dream of that next Disney vacation!
Alyssa
Try these other tasty recipes:
- Cranberry Almond Baked French Toast
- Peppermint Bark Fudge
- Soda Cracker Toffee
- Soft, No Spread Sugar Cookies (perfect for Cookie Cutters!)
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Churro Toffee (a Disneyland Copycat Recipe!)
Ingredients
Toffee:
- ½ cup almonds
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup brown sugar packed
- 2 tablespoons water
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
Topping:
- 12-16 ounces white chocolate candy coating
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread almonds over a baking sheet and bake for 9-10 minutes, make sure they don’t burn! Let them cool and then finely chop the almonds.
- Take your baking sheet and line it with parchment paper or a silpat mat. Spray with cooking spray. Spread your chopped almonds across the entire baking sheet in a thin layer.
- In a large, heavy bottomed pot, over medium-high heat, melt your butter. One melted, add in both sugars and water. Stirring constantly, bring to a boil until the candy thermometer reaches 300 degrees Fahrenheit (hard crack stage).
- Remove from heat and immediately stir in the baking soda. The toffee will bubble a little bit and immediately pour the toffee over your toasted almonds. Using a greased spatula spread the toffee thinly across the lined baking sheet.
- If you want to cut your toffee into squares, like they do at Disneyland, use a greased knife and cut you toffee immediately after you spread it thinly across the pan. If you don’t cut it into squares you can break it into pieces with your hands once the toffee is completely cool. Just know your pieces will be rugged and uneven.
- Once toffee is cool, stir together your cinnamon and sugar in a bowl and set aside. In a microwave safe bowl melt your white chocolate.
- Thinly coat you’re your toffee in white chocolate and then
coat it in cinnamon and sugar. Repeat until all the toffee is coated in white chocolate and cinnamon and sugar. Let cool so the white chocolate is set before enjoying!
Nutrition
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Do you think this can be frozen after being made? Or how long do you think this will be good for after made?
Hi Amanda! I would definitely store this toffee in an airtight container so it doesn’t go stale. It should be good for 2 weeks (probably longer!) at room temperature and 6 months in the freezer!
- Alyssa
These turned out great! Our friends brought some over the other day and my husband LOVED it and begged me to make some. This recipe turned out great! I didn't add the almonds, but followed everything else. The instructions were easy to follow from start to finish.
I tried making this last night. I have never tasted Disney’s version but can I tell you this is amazingly delicious. Thank you for sharing. The instructions and recipe are so simple and well put. I enjoyed it all esp the fruits of my labor. Merry Christmas to you!
Bridget! I am so glad you loved it and that it all worked out for you! Merry Christmas!
- Alyssa