Cookie Bars - A Recipe Post!

Wait a second, this isn't a food review! I know we don't usually, or ever, as a matter of fact, post recipes, but I thought it would be nice having something different; try something new, you know? The blog isn't changing; we're sticking with food reviews. The recipes will be a new addition to the blog.

For this post, I'm going to show you how to make Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. Maybe I should have started with a different type of recipe, but I had a soon-to-be-expired box of cake mix and an eagerness to write recipe posts since I have so many to share with you.

DISCLAIMER: These type of posts are probably going to be mostly baking/dessert recipes.

REAL DISCLAIMER: Most of these recipes are not mine. Because I hope to not be a recipe thief, I will link [if applicable] and properly source them. If this recipe is yours and the source is incorrect, please contact me at kylestowell107@yahoo.com. Also, I am going to apologize in advanced because I am probably going to reply late if you do email me.

As you heard me briefly mention, I had an almost expired box of cake mix. "But Kitty," you begin, "I thought we were making Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars!" We are! The cake mix is our "secret ingredient" and no, I am not a producer of Chopped or Iron Chef America, and I am not obsessed with secret ingredients. I was considering naming this post "Recipes Using Cake Mixes", so I could be just like yoyomax12, but I decided against it.

After closer analysis of the recipe, I discovered that the recipe is simply a regular chocolate chip cookie dough recipe, omitting the flour, baking powder/soda and salt with cake mix. I suppose the extra agents of the cake mix give the bars a fluffy texture rather than a dense one. Clever, very clever.

Okay, time for the recipe!

Let's begin with the things you will need.

 Here I have brown sugar, white cake mix [with pudding], butter [softened], eggs, water [in the orange cup] and a giant bag of chocolate chips, which is tilted sideways. For exact measurements, see down below.

Oh! I got sprinkles too, since the photo in the recipe showed sprinkles on the final product. These are optional, I guess. I'm not sure why I have these sprinkles. I never use them. Except in this.

Okay, you have the ingredients now, I hope. You do, right? Yeah, you better. Let's start, forreal this time!

Put your softened* butter into a large bowl.

Now cut open your bag of rock-hard sugar. Try to make it fit into the measuring cup.

Dump the sugar into the bowl of butter and mix it together until it looks like cinnamon cream cheese. Actually, I think my butter was just a tad too soft, so it should be slightly stiffer than you see here.

Add the eggs and water into the bowl. I think I was supposed to beat the eggs and water together before adding them, but I was not going to dirty another dish. I don't like doing the dishes.

Stir it together and- ahHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay, I'm getting goosebumps just looking at this. This is what happened after I mixed it together. A multitude of dumb mistakes on my part could have caused this, the separation of the butter/sugar mixture and the eggs and water. I probably should have used a whisk or an electric mixer to properly emulsify the eggs and butter together. Or, maybe I should have beaten the eggs before adding it to the butter mixture. Well if this happens to you, I encourage you to keep going, because I did.

Add your cake mix. Don't worry if it's a little [or a lot, in my case] lumpy, everything will be fine after it bakes and no one will notice. Shhh. It'll be a secret between just us. If it really bothers you, go ahead and sift it.

And now, chocolate chips! I added less than the recipe called for because I was bringing this to a family dinner and my family isn't a giant fan of chocolate.

Mix in the chocolate chips well. We wouldn't want spots of the finished bars to have all chocolate and no dough while other parts have all dough and no chocolate.

Whip out your brand new Silpat! In the original recipe, you would have used a greased 9x13 in cake pan, but I really wanted to use my Silpat. 

Plop your dough onto the Silpat, or into the cake pan if you're following the recipe to a tee, like the little goody two-shoes you are.

Before and After

 Spread it out so the dough is even, that way, it bakes evenly. If you want sprinkles on top of your bars, now would be the time to put them on. Sprinkle on as many or as little sprinkles as you like, and pat them down into the dough so they don't fall out or move around. Bake at 350°F for 30-35 minutes. I didn't preheat the oven at the beginning of the recipe like I was supposed to, because I'm rebellious forgetful, so I did it sometime while I was making the dough. Preheat your oven whenever you want, just make sure you do it!

They spread a bit, but this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been me and used a cake pan like you should have. It's okay, because cookie bars are cookie bars.

Well, they're technically not bars yet, because we still need to cut them... so I messily trimmed the edges, because I wanted my bars to look pretty.

Here, I cut them up into eight pieces. They were still pretty big.

 

So I cut the eighths into quarters and now I have 32 bars and some scraps, which were delicious.

 You can find the original recipe and recipe measurements at the provided source, right over here.

Enjoy!

*If you've ever made cookies, then you already know how essential it is for the butter to be softened, so it cannot frozen or melted. Leave the butter out overnight so it can warm up to room temperature.