REPORT: Disneyland Staff State Churro Toffee the Most Successful Candy In Nearly A Decade
When you think of iconic Disneyland snacks, there’s Dole Whip, Mickey-shaped pretzels, and the ever popular churros. Disney has long played with different variations on churros, but one of their ideas that debuted in 2018, churro toffee, has exploded to a fan favorite beyond anything Disney employees have seen before.
According to Disneyland Resort Candy Production Manager Monica Weda, the squares of churro-flavored toffee have become one of the park’s top-selling candy items, and one of the most successful items that she’s seen in her almost eight years working in the candy production team.
“The churro toffee has been Candy Production’s number one selling item consistently, week over week.” she told Foodbeast. “I’ve never seen a [candy] treat over the last nearly eight years that has had popularity this strong and consistent.”
This means that amongst all of the candy apples, crispy cereal treats, cake pops, and other items you can find in Disneyland’s multiple candy shops, churro toffee is the top seller.
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“It’s got some weird magical quality to it,” says Disney Food Blog creator AJ Wolfe. She was among the first to find it during its debut, and has since become a big fan of it.
The sweet is made by enrobing squares of toffee in a coating of white chocolate and then dusting it in a cinnamon sugar. Weda confirmed that it’s the same blend of sugar and spice that’s used to coat Disneyland’s churros. It also comes with an intriguing backstory, as the toffee was a concept that had been sitting on the back burner for years.
“Back in 2013, we had a product development session, and one of our candy makers said, ‘Hey, how about we try our English toffee but with white chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar?'” Weda said.
The toffee was delicious, but it wasn’t rolled out that year due to a lot of major sweet releases coinciding with the park’s 60th anniversary. Churro toffee, and its recipe, were kept away in files for a few years until the debut of Pixar Pier in 2018. The Candy Production Team then decided to try it out at the newly-opened Bing Bong’s Sweet Shop, and it rapidly became a fan favorite that spread to the rest of California Adventure before year’s end.
By late 2019, churro toffee was so coveted that the other parks’ food and beverage teams wanted in on the action. They used the candy squares to create other items, like a Churro Toffee Cold Brew and Churro Marshmallow Wands, that were launched during the holdiay season. Weda confirmed to Foodbeast that Marshmallow Wands, which were originally sold in just 2 locations, will be available across all of the candy shops starting in 2020 due to their recent success. When asked about the meaning of Disneyland adding treats to other creations, Wolfe mentioned that “[Disney] knows when something sells.”
Churro Toffee has definitely been a huge seller, with it going from test item to a Disneyland “Core Classic,” or staple, within less than 18 months of its debut. Based on the popularity it has on both social media and within the parks, it seems like this is the next hyped treat to get alongside Dole Whip and the actual churros themselves while perusing the parks.
“I don’t see it going away anytime soon,” Weda said. “I do feel that this is going to become one of our staples within our assortment.”
