TASTING NOTES: Even without years of family history, the toffee bars were a hit with members of the Higgins Eats family. Think of these bars as a variation of the chocolate chip cookie bar recipe — deconstructed. I don't know if there's any food science behind this, but it seemed to me that I got more chocolate flavor from the chips smeared over the top than mixed into the dough. Don't expect strong toffee flavor in the traditional sense of the sticky butterscotch found in candy bars. It's more subtly toffee, minus the teeth-sticking texture. I limited chopped nuts (I used pecans) to part of the pan because of nut allergies in my family. Both plain and nut topping portions were tasty but I liked the bars topped with pecans better.