Candy Bar Blondies
on Oct 18, 2018, Updated Oct 31, 2024
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Plan to buy more candy than you need for trick-or-treaters just to make sure you have enough extras to make these candy bar blondies either before or after Halloween. They are a colorful, festive and easy bar cookie recipe that you can customize with your favorite mix of chocolate candies such as snickers, m&ms, peanut butter cups and more.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
It lets your Halloween candy do double duty. There is just something so tasty about all those miniatures that pop up in September and October, all in anticipation of the biggest candy holiday of the year. Of course you can just unwrap them and eat them, but they are great when you put them into a cookie recipe.
They are more exciting than a typical blondie recipe with just chocolate chips and nuts. That’s because you end up with crisp bites from m&m shells and gooey ones from caramel and nougat in candy bars.
These blondies are perfect for Halloween parties, and they are simple to bake. There is no complicated decorating here. A couple cups of candy goes into the batter, and the rest you can press in on top. There is no pressure or skill necessary. Also, you can make this by hand without an electric mixer.
The Ingredients
This is what you need:
- Chocolate candies: I like using a variety for both appearance and taste such as m&ms, Snickers, Milky Way, Hershey Bars and peanut butter cups. Leave the m&ms whole and roughly chop the rest.
- Butter: There is no waiting for the butter to soften. For these blondies, you melt a cup of butter. You can do this in the microwave.
- Brown sugar: Because I want to keep the candy the focus, I use light brown sugar and not dark brown sugar. I don’t want the bars to turn out with too much of that molasses taste. Brown sugar adds moisture and makes the bars a bit chewy.
- Granulated sugar: The majority of the sugar in the recipe is brown, but I like balancing that out with white sugar.
- Eggs: The recipe calls for 2 large eggs.
- Vanilla extract rounds out the bars adding its subtle flavor. Always use pure vanilla extract and not imitation when you bake.
- Flour: You need all-purpose flour. I have not tested the recipe with an alternative gluten-free flour.
- Baking powder lightens the bars, giving them some lift and just the right consistency.
- Kosher salt: For both savory and sweet recipes, salt activates all the flavors without a strong saltiness.
How To Make Candy Bar Blondies
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan with butter and line it with parchment paper.
- Combine the wet ingredients in a large bowl. That includes the melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Before you do this, allow the butter a few minutes to cool off, so it’s not so hot that it will cook the eggs.
- Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl including the flour, baking powder and salt.
- Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Stir in 2 cups of candy. You should save that last half cup to decorate the top of the dough.
- Spread the dough into the pan and press in the remaining candy.
- Bake the blondies until they are golden brown. Give them 35-40 minutes. You will see the edges pull away from the sides of the pan.
Cutting & Serving Blondies
Let the blondies cool completely, so it’s not messy when you cut them. If you do want to serve them warm, you can reheat them for a few minutes in a 300-degree F oven after you cut them.
Since you greased the pan and lined it, you can lift the entire cookie out of the pan pretty easily to slice them. I like using a metal ruler to make equal cuts. This is up to you, but then you are more likely to have close-to-uniform bars.
Leftovers & Storage
Keep the blondies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days. They have a tendency to dry out the less fresh they are. You can revive the bars in a 300-degree F oven for 2-3 minutes. To keep the bars up to a month, store them, wrapped tightly, in the freezer. Thaw them at room temperature.
More Bar Cookie Recipes
Salted Fudge Brownies
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Milk Chocolate Almond Brownies
Cinnamon Squares
Cream Cheese Brownies
Ricotta Cheesecake Bars
Pretzel Shortbread Bars
No-Bake Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Bars
Zucchini Brownies
Candy Bar Blondies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for greasing pan
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher
- 2-1/2 cups chocolate candies (m&ms left whole; Snickers, Milky Way, Hershey Bars, peanut butter cups roughly chopped)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan with butter and line with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk the butter, both sugars, eggs and vanilla extract.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
- Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined.
- Fold 2 cups candy into the dough.
- Spread in an even layer into the prepared baking pan. Press the remaining candy on top.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes until the blondies are golden brown and the edges have pulled away from the sides of the pan.
- Cool completely before cutting into 16 squares or your desired size.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
