Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

A while back, I recalled that people would use box cake mixes to make cookie bars. I don’t use box cake mixes, so I decided to make my own simple cookie bar recipe and here we are.

These are undeniably easy to make and even easier to eat! The recipe lends itself to variation, so you can make the same basic recipe with a variety of results. We happened across a bag of Dandies vegan mint mini marshmallows the other day which inspired me to make cookie bars. Marshmallow mint chocolate chip cookie bars are fantastic by the way. I’ve listed the original recipe along with today’s variation.

I included a picture of a version sans marshmallows (but I believe with date pieces) so you can see what the original version looks like. That version also rose a bit more and appears more cake like. At this point, who knows what I did for that one- egg replacer instead of applesauce? All granulated sugar? Different flours? I no longer remember. And really, even though I always do things a bit differently each time, every time these cookies bars have been delicious.

If you don’t want to use applesauce for whatever reason, it is replacing two eggs. So you can use whatever you want to make the equivalent of two eggs- flax egg, Ener-G egg replacer, etc, just know that it will slightly change the texture of your cookie bars. That’s not necessarily bad, yours just may not turn out exactly like mine.

Let me tell you, it’s no small feat waiting for these to cool. They smell amazing, just inviting you to dig on in. I’m not going to say that I didn’t eat a few “broken” bits when I was cutting them into squares, I’m just going to say that a few squares were slightly smaller than the others.

Happy baking, friends!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Original recipe

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

5 tablespoons coconut oil, softened

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

2 cups chocolate chips

Today’s variations

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup date sugar

1 cup chocolate chips

2 cups minty mini marshmallows

Gather together all of your ingredients. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a medium to large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder. Set it aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer or a large mixing bowl, mix together the coconut oil and sugar.

Add applesauce, vanilla, and the smaller amount of the almond milk. Mix well.

Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Mix until well incorporated. Mixture should look like cookie dough; if it’s too dry add almond milk 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached.

Mix in chocolate chips and mini marshmallows.

Lightly spray a 9×13 pan. Spread mixture evenly into the pan.

Bake 20-22 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool before cutting into squares.