Easy lace cookie bark is a wafer thin, crispy, buttery toffee cookie that’s baked into large slabs instead of individual cookies. The batter mixes up quickly on the stove top and is ready for the oven in minutes! Then, the crispy wafers are covered in your choice of chocolate and toppings. I’ve added vanilla, orange zest and cinnamon, but the options for different flavors and toppings are endless! They are a perfect addition to your holiday and Christmas cookie trays!
If you’re a fan of lace cookies or a big fan of toffee, you’re about to become a fan of Easy Lace Cookie Bark.
Me? I have been a fan of lace cookies for years. Two impossibly thin wafer cookies that taste like toffee with chocolate sandwiched between them? Um, yes. Sign me up for two…or, maybe three…
Crispy, chocolatey, nutty, sweet…I find them rather addictive and generally dangerous to have around.
Another reason to be a big fan? It may be one of the easiest cookies you make this year…
What is a lace cookie?
Lace cookies are also called, “Lacey Cookies” or “Florentines.” They are wafer thin, buttery, crispy, nutty and toffee like.
Traditionally, the batter is quickly made on the stove top (no thermometer required!) Then, that sugary buttery batter is scooped out in small portions that spread significantly into rounds that are super thin and lacey.
In other words, they bake up with little holes and bubbles and craters. Hold them up to the light and the light will shine through.
When fresh out of the oven, those rounds can be molded into whatever shape you desire. In other words, they work well as “tuile” cookies. (Tuile cookies are super thin cookies that can be shaped or molded while warm, then harden into that shape as they cool.)
While lace cookies can be formed into cigar shapes or bowl shapes, you’re more likely to see them sold in their original round shape, often sandwiched with melted chocolate.
When two wafer thin cookies are sandwiched with chocolate, they become a sturdier and thicker cookie sandwich (and oh so delicious!)
What ingredients are in a lace cookie?
They are often made with ground nuts, but they can also be made with ground oats. Some recipes include all purpose flour, some don’t. The ground nuts and/or flours form the base ingredients and help give the cookie its structure.
The rest of the ingredients are pretty much butter, sugar and flavorings.
Some recipes use milk or cream, others use corn syrup. I went with corn syrup. (Remember, light corn syrup is NOT high fructose corn syrup.)
What is Easy Lace Cookie Bark?
It’s basically a lace cookie, but in bark form. I made giant slab lace cookies instead of small ones. It’s genius, if you ask me :)
In other words, there’s no scooping lots of little cookies on lots of trays. Trust me, that batter spreads! A small spoonful of batter can spread into a 3-4″ cookie! If you’re not careful, they’ll spread right into each other.
That means you can only fit about 6 or 8 to a baking sheet depending on your sheet and the size cookie you make. That’s multiple sheets that will have to be baked.
Then, if you want to sandwich them with chocolate (which for me, is mandatory ;) that’s a whole other step and another bowl to melt it in!
I’m not gonna say it’s super difficult to do those steps. It’s not. I love the whole sandwich version. But…there is an easier way and it opens up more options for variations.
So, instead of baking up a bunch of individual cookies, we’re going to throw caution to the wind, press the easy button and make two giant lace cookies.
No spooning little bits of batter on a sheet. Half goes on one sheet. Half goes on another.
When we’re done, we’ll cover the whole darn thing with chocolate and whatever else our heart desires.
How do you make Easy Lace Cookie Bark?
Let’s start with the dry ingredients…I skipped grinding any nuts or oats and went with a fine ground almond flour from Bob’s Red Mill. You can just measure and go if it’s already ground up, right? Easy peasy.
It’s the almond flour I keep on hand for things like my Lemon Almond Chia Bread and of course, for Chaffles.
To the almond flour, I added some all purpose flour and some salt. If you want to make them gluten free, you can sub more almond flour for the all purpose flour.
I also added some extra flavor. Normally, I like my lace cookies with just toffee and chocolate. But since it’s the holidays, I wanted to add some festive seasonal flavors.
So, I added orange zest and cinnamon. I mean, orange and chocolate make a great match, right? I whisked that into the flours to help separate the shreds of zest and evenly distribute the spice.
Then, in a small saucepan, I melted butter, sugar and corn syrup. Bring it to a boil, then remove from heat and add in the next flavor, vanilla.
So far, we’ve got a small bowl of dry ingredients and a saucepan of wet. The dry goes into the wet and is stirred until well combined.
That’s pretty much it. Onto baking them…
What should I bake the lace cookies on?
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I use a silpat lined baking sheet. I’ve only ever used a silpat lined baking sheet for lace cookies.
I believe you can use parchment, but if you bake regularly, I would invest in a non-stick silicone baking mat. {aff. link}
You’ll use it anytime you need to bake something that you don’t want to stick. It’s also great for candy making.
The parchment will likely yield a different result and the batter may not spread as thinly or cook as evenly. It will still work, but expect some variation if you choose that route.
Nothing to worry about, just know that parchment doesn’t work exactly like silicone sheets.
Don’t let it stop you from making this recipe.The most important thing is that you don’t want it to stick. Parchment paper will solve that for you.
How do I spread the batter on the cookie sheet?
Very carefully! Actually, I’m kidding. It’s a pretty easy batter to work with. Just scoop half of the batter into the middle of the baking sheet.
You can use an offset spatula to initially spread it out on the sheet.
Once you’ve done a quick spread with the spatula, put the spatula down. If you try to keep spreading the batter, it’s just gonna stick to the spatula and to itself and you’ll get frustrated.
Spreading it with the spatula simply helps to cool it down so that you can start using your hands. Yep, after fighting the batter with the spatula, it was a revelation.
I didn’t include the photo of my second half of batter, but I pressed that baby into a beautiful rectangle.
The batter is buttery. It won’t stick to your hands and will be super easy to press into a nice thin layer. Mine was about 12 x 8, but you don’t have to measure. Just spread it thinly and evenly.
Don’t worry about any indentations left from your fingerprints. They’ll bake away and you’re going to cover the whole slab with chocolate anyway, right?
How will I know when they’re done?
It will take about 8-10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. The whole surface will be bubbly and toffee colored and the edges will be starting to get a deeper brown.
That’s it. They’re done. Just take them out of the oven and move on to the chocolate stage.
How to melt the chocolate for the bark?
We’re going to melt the chocolate right on top of the hot lace cookie! No extra pans! (This was a nice short cut for my Triple Peanut Butter Blondies too!)
So, as soon as you take the tray out of the oven, sprinkle chocolate chips or chopped chocolate all over the surface.
It doesn’t have to be perfectly even, you’ll even it all out later. Just give all the chocolate pieces an even shot at melting.
Pop the tray back into the oven for a minute. Then remove the tray and spread the chocolate evenly over the surface of the cookie. I like to leave a small border around the edges.
I used a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips for each slab. This will create a thin layer of chocolate. I thought it was the proper proportion for the wafer thin cookie, but you can use more if you’d prefer.
What kind of chocolate can I use for Easy Lace Cookie Bark?
As I mentioned, I used chocolate chips, but you can use chopped chocolate in semi, milk, white or bittersweet. Use your favorite.
For my first tray, I went with Ghiradelli mini semisweet chips. I figured the mini chips would melt faster. You can use regular sized, if you wish. The oven will melt any size.
For my second tray, I went with a mix of the minis and Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips. I wanted that batch to be a bit sweeter. There was no issue melting the bigger milk chocolate chips in the same time the minis melted.
What are some topping ideas?
I wanted to further the almond theme, having used almond flour. So, I toasted up some slivered almonds. Toasting is always a good idea to bring out extra flavor in nuts.
I also wanted to underscore the whole toffee flavor with some toffee chips.
But, this is Easy Lace Cookie Bark. So, you know, you can basically put anything on top from other nuts, to dried fruits, candies, sprinkles etc. Whatever you love, just sprinkle it on top before the chocolate sets.
Why is salt important in sweet recipes?
Salt helps to wake up your palate to taste the sweet. If you made a chocolate chip cookie with unsalted butter and then added no salt to the recipe, it would taste flat. You would notice it, right away. It would just taste wrong.
I love the mix of salt with sweet. I love salted caramel and salted chocolates. So, I put salt in the batter and I also sprinkled it on one of my batches. Hands down, the one with the salted top tasted better to me.
But, we all have our own preferences. The salt in the batter is important and may be enough for some. If you love a heightened salty sweet flavor, go ahead and sprinkle some coarse kosher salt or, even better, flaky sea salt on top. I loved it!
Can I use other flavors in the batter?
Absolutely! In my recipe, I used orange zest, cinnamon and vanilla. I loved the combo and especially loved that orange flavor with the chocolate.
If you’re not fond of orange, skip it. I tried it with 1/2 a teaspoon of each flavor and with full teaspoons of each and loved them both. Go with full teaspoons for a stronger flavor, 1/2 teaspoon for milder flavor.
Feel free to use other spices, extracts etc. When you’re thinking about creating your bark, just create a mix that goes together. The options are endless!
Of course, if you wanted to go basic, maybe just some vanilla in the batter and just plain chocolate on top.
Or, mix some peanut butter chips in with the chocolate chips and create a swirl. Add chopped peanuts or maybe chopped thin pretzel sticks or even some extra (unmelted) mini chocolate chips for some texture.
How about orange in the batter, white chocolate on top with some chopped dried cranberries or dried cherries? That could be a great combo…
I can’t imagine any way I wouldn’t like this Easy Lace Cookie Bark. It’s so easy to make and way too easy to eat.
Imagine, crispy thin toffee like wafers just covered in chocolate and toppings.
Then, try to eat just one. It’s like they’re the candy version of potato chips…and they’re so thin, it doesn’t even feel like a splurge. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Lime Meltaway Cookies
Lime Meltaway Cookies are buttery, tender, shortbread type of cookie that seem to melt in your mouth. They pack a citrus punch due to fresh lime juice and zest in the cookie dough as well as in the icing.
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, (1 1/2 sticks or 12 Tablespoons) softened
- 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
- 1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1 teaspoon lime zest
For the icing:
- 1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
- 2-3 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- 1 teaspoon lime zest
- pinch of salt
Instructions
Make the cookies:
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch and salt insuring there are no lumps. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, beat softened butter and confectioner's sugar, lime juice and zest until well combined.
- Add flour mixture and beat on low speed until thoroughly combined.
- Dough will be a bit sticky. Divide dough in half.
- Place a sheet of plastic wrap on your work surface. Place half of the dough on the wrap and cover with a second sheet . Using the plastic wrap to keep the dough from sticking to your hands, form the dough into a round disk. Keeping the dough between the sheets of plastic wrap, use a rolling pin, roll dough to just under 1/2" thick.
- Bring the edges of the plastic up to wrap the rolled out dough. Repeat with the other half of dough.
- Place rolled out dough onto a flat sheet and refrigerate or freeze until firm. This will take about 30-60 minutes.
- Once dough is firm, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Remove the top layer of plastic wrap, reserving it for subsequent rollings. Dip cookie cutters into flour before each cut, then cut desired shapes out of rolled out dough. Place cut out cookies onto an ungreased baking sheet. Brush off any excess flour with a pastry brush.
- Bring together scraps and reroll between plastic wrap and cut shapes, repeating until finished. Remove the other half of dough from the refrigerator and repeat the cutting process until finished. (I like to bake the first tray while I'm working on the second.)
- Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until set. Cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet, then remove to cooling rack to finish cooling.
Make the icing:
- Mix all icing ingredients until well combined with no lumps. You can sift the sugar to prevent lumps or just stir briskly until they're all broken up and the icing is smooth. Add more lime juice if necessary to get a fluid spreading consistency. I start with 2 Tablespoons of juice and work from there.
Ice the cookies:
- Spread the tops of each cookie with a layer of icing. Allow icing to fully set/dry before storing/stacking.
Notes
*Leave the second half of dough in the refrigerator to chill while you're working with the first half.
*You can leave the unbaked, rolled dough in the refrigerator overnight, if you wish, and finish cutting and baking them the next day.
*Remember to zest your limes before juicing them.
*My cookie cutters were about 1 1/2". If you make larger cookies, your bake time may increase. Watch for doneness and add time as necessary.
*Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to three days or frozen for up to 3 months.
Recipe adapted from Land O' Lakes