Baked in an 8×8 pan, these 10-ingredient chewy chocolate chip cookie bars are an easy homemade dessert. They’re finished with flaky sea salt for flavor and to make them look a bit fancy.
This recipe is legendary in my family. Credit goes to my Grandma Sylvia who actually wasn’t much of a cook. My grandfather spent more time in the kitchen, but she always baked these bar cookies.
My mom and my brother bake them just like my grandma, but over the years I’ve done some experimenting and made some updates. And yes, one of them includes a sprinkle of sea salt right when I take the pan out of the oven. I have a feeling Grandma would approve.
Don’t get me wrong. I like baking individual cookies. However, making a single large cookie in a pan and then cutting it into squares is such a timesaver.
If you are making cookie dough that needs to be portioned out, it’s a good idea to chill the dough. No chilling is necessary when you spread all the dough in a pan with a cookie bar recipe.
Also, bar cookies are a great opportunity to be spontaneous and add mix-ins like chocolate chips, nuts, candy or pretzels.
This is what you need for the recipe:
Greasing the pan with butter and lining it parchment paper is the first step to making cutting easy.
Give the cookies time to cool, or things will get gooey and messy when you cut them. Remember you can always rewarm the squares in the oven for a few minutes if you want the chocolate to be kind of melted and glossy.
This is when I pull out one of my favorite kitchen tools, a metal ruler. It is a washable straight edge to guide your knife. I like to make tiny hash marks with my knife as I am measuring. While I can’t guarantee perfectly uniform squares, this will go a long way to making the task more achievable.
Store the bars in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days. You will find that they have tendency to dry out the less fresh they are. You can revive the bars in a 325-degree-F oven for 3-4 minutes. The warm chocolate helps.
To keep the bars up to a month, store them in the freezer. Thaw them on a plate at room temperature and warm in the oven as desired.
There’s nothing wrong keeping things simple and devouring the bars on their own, maybe with a glass of milk.
If you like your dessert a la mode, the chewy texture of the bars is great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or salted caramel.
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Milk Chocolate Almond Brownies
Cinnamon Squares
Baked in an 8×8 pan and finished with flaky sea salt, these 10-ingredient chewy chocolate chip cookie bars are an easy homemade dessert.
Store the bars in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days. You will find that they have tendency to dry out the less fresh they are. You can revive the bars in a 325-degree-F oven for 3-4 minutes.
To keep the bars up to a month, store in an airtight container in the freezer. Thaw them on a plate at room temperature and warm in the oven as desired.
Keywords: chocolate chip cookie bars, cookie bars, chocolate chips bars
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