Christmas Cookie Bars

Every year I like to spend a few days baking with Peyton. It’s a great way to spend some time together and also a great way to make presents for those special people in our lives. Tonight, Peyton and I are making these, yummy, chewy Christmas Cookie Bars.  This is a soft bar that makes for a chewy treat that goes perfectly with an ice-cold glass of milk. Plus it’s really simple to make.

I do have a few tips for these cookies before we began –

If you have a stand mixer, use it. This batter gets pretty thick and that can be a challenge for hand mixers. Trust me I know. I tried using a hand mixer to see how it would work and I will now be going back to my stand mixer.

Use creamy peanut butter, it gives you a nice smooth consistency. Natural and reduced-fat peanut butter are denser and the bars tend to come out dry.

Do not overbake! I cannot stress this one enough. It will dry out your cookie.

Use old fashioned oats and not quick oats. Old fashioned oats will give you the moist chewy consistency. Quick oats won’t.

You will need the following to make these bars –

1 1/2 C All-Purpose Flour
1 C Old Fashioned Oats
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 C Butter (unsalted) softened
1/3 C Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 C Granulated Sugar
1/2 C Brown Sugar, packed
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Large Egg
1 Large Egg Yolk
1 C Mini Milk Chocolate Chips
1 C Peanut M&Ms – Christmas Mix
Christmas Sprinkles – red, green and white

The first step is to organize all your ingredients and get that oven preheated! So set the oven for 350 degrees.

Next, take a 9X13 inch baking pan and either lightly grease the bottom or you can take a short cut like me and line it with tin foil and spray the bottom. I find this is the easier way if you want to take the bars out and cut them up without having to worry about digging them out of the pan.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, and oats. You can either use a whisk to get it mixed up or even a fork. Just make sure the dry ingredients are mixed well.  Once they are mixed, set them aside for later.

Now pull out that stand mixer and make sure you have the large bowl and the paddle attachment on. If you don’t have a stand mixer, don’t worry, you can still use a hand mixer you just may need to do a little the mixing towards the end by hand with a strong spoon.

Cream together the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar until it looks fluffy. This should take a few minutes using either method.

Next, add the vanilla, egg, and yolk and mix together. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl so everything is combined.

Now add the dry ingredients until they are mixed together. You don’t want to over mix this. This is also the step you may need to do by hand if you have been using a hand mixer.  It’ll get pretty thick and that could burn out your hand mixer so be aware of just what your hand mixer can handle.

Add about three-fourths of your chocolate chips and peanut M&Ms to your mix and stir them in.

Now it’s time to but your cookie batter into the baking sheet. You can either pour, dump the batter or press the batter in the pan. Any way you do this, you just want to make sure that the cookie dough is spread evenly throughout the pan.

Take the remainder of the chocolate chips and peanut M&Ms and sprinkle them on top of the dough. Sprinkle your Christmas sprinkles on top of the dough as well. Then gently press them down into the bars.

Bake for about 14-16 minutes. When the edges are slightly brown it’s time to take them out of the oven.

Cool the bars, in the pan, for about 20-30 minutes then you can slice them into the desired size square.

These make great Christmas gifts. I gave them out to my daughter’s friends this holiday season and they all loved them!

Be sure to check out our Melted Snowman Cookies. They also make great Christmas gifts too! Or they are always a hit at holiday parties.