Ferrara

Break open a milk chocolate-coated Butterfinger candy bar, and you’ll see flaky layers of candy inside, and it may not seem possible to replicate that mysterious peanuty center at home without some special equipment. However, considering that candy bars as old as this usually begin as handmade recipes, I figured there must be a way to craft a Butterfinger clone from scratch in your kitchen.

Ownership of Butterfinger has changed hands a few times since Otto Schnering invented it in 1923 for his Illinois candy company, Curtiss. Standard Brands bought Curtiss in 1964, and Nabisco merged with Standard Brands in 1981. Nestle purchased Butterfinger from Nabisco in 1990, then later sold it to the Italian candy company Ferrara in 2018. Ferrara claims to have “improved” the formula in 2019 by removing preservatives, adding more cocoa to the chocolate, using better peanuts, plus a few other tweaks. And this is where the controversy starts. Posts on Butterfinger’s social media pages complain that the new Ferrara formula is not as good as the Nestle version, that it leaves a bad aftertaste, and that they should immediately bring back the old recipe.

The new label has fewer ingredients than the old label, but one omission that stood out was the removal of corn flakes. Corn flakes had been used in the Butterfinger recipe since the ‘50s, and that’s the Butterfinger most of us grew up on. Is the lack of corn flakes why some Butterfinger fans don’t like the new recipe? I’m not sure if that’s all there is to it, but for this hack, I chose to go old-school and put the corn flakes back in the bar. 

To achieve the flakiness of the candy, we’ll use a laminating technique that creates layers in the bar, similar to the process of laminating dough for croissants. However, unlike with dough, where you can take your time, you’ll need to work quickly here to create as many layers as possible before it cools, which will only take a few minutes. First, peanut butter is spread over the candy, then it’s folded with a silicone spatula, flattened, and folded some more. When the candy begins to harden, it’s trimmed into bars, cooled, and dipped in milk chocolate.

Try my Butterfinger copycat recipe below, and find more of your favorite candy recipes here.