Forget Chocolate Chip Cookies! This Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars recipe from The 8×8 Cookbook is an absolute winner and perfect for entertaining! Try these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies if you love these.
I recently started eating mostly paleo (more about that here and here), and these chocolate chip cookie bars were the first indulgent treat I had this year. Let’s just say it was totally worth the cheat.
The chocolate chip cookie bars recipe comes straight from a new cookbook that I recently added to my collection, The 8×8 Cookbook by my friend Kathy Strahs. Kathy is a fantastic veteran blogger and cookbook author and was such an inspiration to me when I started my blog. This month being Black History Month, I wanted to give honor to those black women who have recently changed the game with their impressive and creative cookbooks that have motivated me in my kitchen.
To avoid being cliché, I am actually going to continue sharing recipes from what I call #blackgirlmagic cookbooks through April. Last year, an unprecedented amount of African American woman authored cookbooks were released in the marketplace, and it shows how much talent, perspective and creativity the market was missing before they were released. I’m so excited that I could share some of these gifts with you on my site, and I’m truly excited to start with this book because it was such a labor of love for the author. Kathy actually raised funds to self-publish this book through KickStarter. Her entire campaign was so well run and inspiring. Check out and support this book.
I love the idea of this book because everything is created within an 8×8 inch dish. This works perfectly for small families like mine where its just me and the hubby. Going through the book, I saw several recipes that I wanted to share. It also helps when you make this easy and delicious recipe for chocolate chip cookie bars because you won’t need a huge pan to entice you with. Even though, you might want to make two pans but I won’t tell.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened 1 stick
- 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips, divided
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350° F.
- Line an 8x8-inch metal baking pan with parchment paper.
- Beat the butter and both sugars together for several minutes until they’re light and fluffy, either with an electric mixer or by hand with a wooden spoon in a large bowl. Beat in the egg and vanilla until they’re well combined. Separately, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until they’re well combined. Fold in 1 cup of the chocolate chips.
- Pour the dough into the prepared pan, spreading it to the edges and corners (it doesn’t have to be perfect—the dough will further spread in the oven). Bake until the bars are fully set and lightly browned on top, about 25 minutes. Allow them to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack.
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, heat the remaining chocolate chips in the microwave at 50% power in 30 second increments, stirring after each heating, until they’re fully melted (alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a double-boiler on the stove). Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cooled cookie bars before cutting and serving.
- BETTER YET: Cutting a pan of chocolate chip cookies into bars takes a whole lot less effort than scooping individual drop cookies!
Nutrition
Excerpted from The 8×8 Cookbook: Square Meals for Weeknight Family Dinners, Desserts and More—In One Perfect 8×8-Inch Dish, by Kathy Strahs (Burnt Cheese Press, 2015). Reprinted with permission.
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I made those bars yesterday. They were delicious ! My kids whole family couldn’t stop eating them!