Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars Recipe

To all of you who struggle with making a consistently perfect cookie, today I am introducing you to my perfect solution: Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. Maybe you’ve made them before, but if you haven’t, and if you find yourself resorting to break-n-bake cookies when yours fall flat, these  chocolate chip cookie bars will be a dream.

Cookies seem to mark my childhood memories. One of my earliest memories is helping my mom pour in sugar and flour and chocolate chips and getting to lick the bowl (raw eggs and all). And sadly, I think I’ve passed the tradition on to my own daughter. She knows to ask, “does this dough have raw egg in it?” Because occasionally I’ll make a batch just for eating, where we substitute the eggs with applesauce or Greek yogurt. I should feel bad about it, but I don’t. Life is short. Eat cookie dough when you feel you can afford it, that’s my opinion.

Anyway, years ago, my mom and her best friend developed an amazing cookie recipe between the two of them that somehow got lost in translation when all of us daughters got married and moved off. Finding just the right ratios of  baking soda and powder and salt and flour and butter is like walking a tight rope in cookie world, uneven oven temperatures aside. I’ve found fail-proof recipes on Pinterest for cookies, but there is still nothing that can beat these chocolate chip cookie bars.

The idea for this chocolate chip cookie bars recipe came from my own inability to be precise, and mostly, my uncanny knack for losing the recipe every time I went to make the cookies in high school. And the cookie bar idea is not very novel: dump a batch of cookie dough into a 9 by 13 inch baking dish, and stick it in the oven. The results, however, are incredible. You can cook them how you like them, but as for me and my house, we like a gooey, almost underdone cookie bar. Which means that butter and chocolate collide and your plate will inevitably be covered and coated with sugary goodness. It’s making my mouth water just thinking about them.

I used to bake these so often that they became famous in the very small, nebular world of my private high school, and apparently my mom’s students still ask for “Charis’ cookie bars”. And I’m here today to make them available to you for your devouring pleasure.

Allow me to warn you that these chocolate chip cookie bars will not last long, are not very complicated, and may or may not cause you to stumble. Bake at your own risk.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars Recipe:

2 sticks of butter or margarine

1 Cup White Sugar

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda

3/4 tsp Salt

2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 Cup Oatmeal

1 Cup Flaked Coconut

1 1/2 Cups Chocolate Chips

First, preheat your oven to 350. Then, grease a 9 by 13 inch pan and set it aside. Cream the butter and sugars for approximately two minutes. Add each egg one at a time, and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix the baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and mix until combined. Add the oatmeal, coconut, and gingerly add the chocolate chips. If you’re not feeling oatmeal or coconut, feel free to leave them out. But I guarantee you won’t regret leaving them in.

Pour the batter into the greased dish, and bake for 20-24 minutes or until the chocolate chip cookie bars are golden brown on top. Allow to cool, and enjoy! (These last in the freezer for weeks too, just in case you wanted to preserve them and don’t feel like sharing eating them right away.)

Now that you know my chocolate cookie bars recipe, do you have another cookie bar recipe to share??

Copyright © Charis Freije, Moms of Faith®, All Rights Reserved