Heath Bar Cake
This heath bar cake is yummy. The melted chocolate and toffee meld together to create a dreamy, decadent candy layer on top of an incredibly moist cake!
I’ve been eating this cake for at least the last three decades. I requested it every year faithfully for my birthday cake growing up and every year, faithfully, my wonderful mother made it for me.
In college, since my wonderful mother was hundreds of miles away, I went ahead and made it for myself.
Happy Birthday to me! And now? Well, to be honest, I manage to make this cake more often than ever – eliminating it just from the birthday lineup and eating it year round.
When I do happen to request it for my birthday, my husband and kidlets nicely conquer that task.
It is truly a glorious cake. Not only is it a one-bowl wonder (well, one and a half, I guess), but the result of the tender buttermilk cake topped with crumbly streusel and loads of chopped up Heath bars (a chocolate covered toffee bar, in case you are unfamiliar) is one that makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
The melted chocolate and toffee meld together to create this dreamy, decadent candy layer on top of an incredibly moist cake. It is so very, very hard to stop eating.
I can’t believe I only have three decades of eating this under my belt. Here’s to the next three (at least!).
One Year Ago: Balsamic Chicken Noodle Bowl
Two Years Ago: Quick and Delicious Clam Chowder
Three Years Ago: No-Knead Bread Revolution
Heath Bar Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup (212 g) packed light brown sugar
- ½ cup (106 g) granulated sugar
- 2 cups (284 g) flour
- 8 tablespoons (113 g) butter, softened
- 1 cup buttermilk (see note)
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 5-6 (1.4-ounces) each chocolate covered toffee bars (like Heath), chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and center a rack in the middle of the oven. Lightly grease a 9X13-inch pan and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the brown sugar, white sugar, flour and butter. Crumble these ingredients together with a pastry blender, whisk or two forks until the mixture is crumbly and coarse. Remove 1/2 cup of the crumbs to a small bowl and set aside. To the large bowl with the remaining crumbs, add the buttermilk, egg, vanilla, baking soda and salt. Mix well.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it to the edges. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the reserved crumbs and chopped Heath bars. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the center is no longer gooey but a toothpick inserted comes out with moist crumbs. The cake may fall slightly in the center leaving the edges raised. No fear! It will still be delicious.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted slightly from my beautiful mother, Michel W.
87 Comments on “Heath Bar Cake”
I’m so excited to make this recipe again. I haven’t made it since I was a kid. I remember my mom would always buy the mini heath bars. If I use those instead how many would I need to use to equal 5-6 whole bars?
I am not familiar with the size of the mini bars – but you probably want about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of chopped heath bars/bits.
I made this recipe and was such a hit!! Would I be able to make this recipe and change from Heath to a cinnamon pecan?
Sounds like a fun adjustment – should work quite well, I think!
This is the recipe on the sleeve of 5 cent Heath bars
Years ago I add a handful of chopped pecans to the topping that I divide between the middle and top of the cake
Dear Mel
Just read through this recipe’ ingredients to make sure I had everything. I noticed it calls for 1 tsp of baking soda and want to make sure it’s not susposed to be baking powder.
Recently I made a cake and exchanged the two accidentally. It such a little thing but made a big difference.
Yes, it is supposed to be baking soda.
The acid in the buttermilk activates the baking soda. If there was no acid, for instance if you used regular milk, instead of buttermilk, you would likely need to add baking powder (and reduce the baking sod).
Thank you, thank you! My mom made this when I was a little girl and the recipe was lost through the years. She passed away many years ago and nobody could remember how to make it. This is wonderful!
I found this recipe under Forgotten Favorites. It was my daughter and husbands birthday and I made this cake for them. It was a hit and so easy to make. My son in law is going to have it for breakfast. He already requested me to make it for Thanksgiving! Thanks Mel for another delicious recipe.
Glad you loved it, Ann!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I couldn’t find my mom’s Heath Bar Cake recipe and yours is as close as I’ve ever found. I don’t remember hers having buttermilk, but think it would be an amazing addition.
I know this is an old recipe, but I was looking for a quick dessert to make tonight, and came straight to your blog. Didn’t see anything that caught my eye in the first few most recent pages, so I opened a couple of old “recipes the world forgot” posts, and found this one! It was a huge success at a last minute dinner with my in-laws, and was easy enough that I made the whole thing with the three year old doing ninja moves around my feet and the angry-teething eight month old on my hip. I keep powdered buttermilk on hand, and Santa knows me well enough that my Christmas stocking was full of Heath bar minis this year, so I didn’t even have to brave the grocery store. Thank you for yet another amazing family recipe, that fits realistically and comfortably into everyday life.
Laughing out loud about the resident ninja and angry toddler. This was my favorite cake as a kid…and I still love it! Glad you enjoyed it!
Hello! I LOVE this cake and I was wondering if you have/ ever heard of doing a larger version in a rimmed baking sheet?
I haven’t tried it that way but I think it might work; good luck experimenting if you decide to try it!
Hey Mel, I have made this recipe dozens of times and I really enjoy it. The first couple times I made it (over a year ago) there was a definite separation of cake and crumb. But the last few times I’ve made it the cake kind of takes over and my candy bar/crumb sinks. It still tastes amazing. I was just wondering if you’ve ever run into that or if you know what I might be doing wrong.
OH shoot, maybe it’s because I threw an extra handful of chocolate chips on top. Too top heavy?!
Hi Cass – it might be due to the extra chocolate chips but actually when I make this the heath candy bars sink into the middle a little, too – that’s always kind of been the norm for me.
Hi! New to this forum but my grandma as a very similar recipe. She told me to set aside 1 cup of the crumbs, lay 1/2 of crumbs directly onto the cake mix. Mix the remaining 1/2 into the heath bar chunks and sprinkle on top. Great results! Thanks for the recipe
I know this is an old post but I just wanted to chime in…I made this cake twice this week both times using Zach’s grandmother’s suggestion with perfect results…half of the remaining crumbs on top of the cake batter making sure to get them all the way to the edges then mixing the remaining crumbs with the Heath bars…perhaps making sure the toppings cover the edges is the key to keeping the cake from rising around the toppings…both times my cake was perfectly level with no cake coming up around the edges…we have also found that it keeps nicely at room temperature for quite a few days…some of us like it even better as it ages ♀️