Chocolate-Studded Cookie Bars

I didn’t plan to make this. Making this just sort of happened.

You see, I’m usually lucky on Friday the 13^th. Nothing terrible ever happens to me on this day, well except this particular Friday the 13^th. I was originally going to make butterscotch bars, but those flopped miserably.

I was craving a treat and since the cake had been finished off within 24 hours, we had no desserts in the house, which is unacceptable. So I took a look through my Foodgawker favorites and found a few recipes for butterscotch bars. I quickly picked one out (turns out most of the recipes were almost identical) and set to work.

I hadn’t even gotten passed the second step before I knew something wasn’t right. The butterscotch chips and the butter were not coming together like I imagined. The recipe clearly said to melt the butterscotch chips and the butter together in a saucepan. Well the butter melted, and the butterscotch chips melted, but they were like water and oil. They refused to come together. Now looking back I’m not sure if that’s how it was supposed to be, but at the moment, it didn’t seem right. So I tossed that batch and tried again, this time with less butter. Still the mixture would not play nice. So I tossed that batch as well (terrible waste of butter and butterscotch chips sadly). So what to do with all the other ingredients sitting on the table? Well I had to make something since my eggs were already cracked. I quickly hopped on Foodgawker again and desperately searched for something with one egg and egg white. I found nothing, but the chocolate studded blondies definitely caught my attention.

These are so simple to make, seriously. It hardly took any time at all. These went from nothing in a bowl to goopy delicious batter poured into a pan and placed in the oven in probably 7 minutes. The batter is sort of thin, and it will need a little coaxing, but it’s so worth it. My sister, who never eats anything I make, loved them. She even took some to her friend’s house, and came back empty handed.

I have decided to change the name though. These tasted a little like chocolate chip cookies, which in my opinion is great! I think blondies and cookie bars are sort of like half siblings where the blondie and the brownie are like cousins. And because these bars are on the thinner side (much like a cookie in bar form) I’m re-naming them as chocolate-studded cookie bar. But no matter what you call ‘em, they’re still so delicious, I may just have to make more!

Chocolate-Studded Cookie Bar
Adapted from Flour Arrangements
Makes one 8x8 or 9x9 inch pan

Ingredients
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1 cup dark brown sugar
¼ tsp. salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
45 grams semi-sweet chocolate chips (use more to your preference)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a square baking pan, either 8x8 or 9x9 inch, with tinfoil. Grease tinfoil with cooking spray and set aside.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Whisk in the brown sugar and salt. Remove from heat and let it cool for just a minute so you don’t scramble the egg when you add them. Speaking of eggs, once the butter/sugar mixture has cooled down slightly, beat in the egg. Add the vanilla and stir. Add the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir until combined.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. You may need to coax the batter towards the sides. Once the batter has been evenly spread out to all sides of the pan, put it in the oven and bake for 15-18 minutes or until the top has turned golden brown.

Allow to cool in the pan before slicing. This would be an absolute dream to eat with some vanilla bean ice cream!