Over the Top Cookie Bars

When I started thinking about creating this I had a clear head, then I woke up Saturday morning with a cold, but preceded to go on with the experiment today. I was inspired by VanillaSugar blog, she always has something super creative coming out of her kitchen, though clearly she has more experience under her belt. My brain was not working at full capacity (from the cold itself and the cold medicine), but I managed to bust it out, though not exactly how it should have been. I knew I would have some issues completing this successfully when I forgot to add the egg in the cookie dough...

The stuff added to this chocolate chip cookie bar is literally over-the-top with chocolate, peanut butter and crackers. This sweet, salty, cheezy, peanut buttery combo hits the spot, just have to get the ratio of layers right. The issue I had this time around was too much cookie, not enough Cheez-its!

But now that I've tried assembling them and tasting, here are directions that will have them turn out how they should have...

Chocolate Chip Cookie Layer

Get a basic cookie dough recipe ready, even the pre-made stuff and press it into a greased large (6-capacity) muffin tin, or an 8x8 baking dish. It should be about 1/4 inch thick. (mine were too think). You'll have cookie dough left over especially if you only make this in the muffin tins. Bake in oven and let cool in the pan. Loosen the cookies by running a knife around the edge and still leave them in the pan.

Peanut Butter Layer

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup + 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup butter (at room temperature)
  
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• pinch of salt
• salted peanuts (optional)

Mix all ingredients except the peanuts with a mixer until smooth. Gently mix in peanuts. Spread evenly over the cooled cookies. Place in fridge until set (or close to set).

Chocolate Layer

Ingredients

• 1 Cup white chocolate chips (or any type of chocolate you like)
• 2 tbsp butter or vegetable shortening
• 1tbsp light corn syrup
• 2 cups slightly broken Cheez-its and/or pretzels

Melt the chocolate chips (use good quality, melting white chocolate can be tricky), butter and corn syrup in a double boiler with as little heat as possible. Stir vigorously. As soon as my white chips started to melt, I took it off the heat entirely and stirred as hard as I could until it became silky.

Gently mix in the Cheez-its/pretzels into the chocolate. Poor the warm chocolate over the cooled cookies and let set in the fridge until hard.

* I didn't do my layers in this order, but I think it should all stick together better with the hard chocolate on top.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Tips & Tricks to Mix By

A Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie. real. close. up.

There are so many chocolate chip cookie recipes floating around in this world, so for a traditional chocolate chip cookie I like using Nestle Toll House’s recipe (without nuts & using different chocolate chips). Here are 5-ish serious tips to make your chocolate chip cookie the best it can be.

1. Have your ingredients & especially butter at a cool room temperature (65 degrees F). At this temperature butter is most malleable and will create the most amount of air bubbles as its mixed. The more air in the dough, the more rise in the oven, and the fluffier and more delicious your cookie will be.
2. Beat the butter & sugar together at a lower speed (about 2 minutes with a mixer paddle attachment). Add the sugar in slowly, this creaming process adds even more air bubbles (imagine the granular sugar making air bubbles in the butter), but don’t mix so long that your butter warms up.
3. Use unsalted butter, it is generally fresher, takes out the question of how much salt to add to your dough (sometimes I add a bit extra salt, it adds amazing flavor to your cookies!) and has a lower water content which allows for more air bubbles, more fluffiness, yay!
4. Don’t over-mix your dough, it will warm it up which means less fluffy cookies.
5. Use good chocolate I generally use Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chips.
   
6. And here’s the real secret: refrigerate your dough for 24 hours! (or at least over-night if that’s as long as you can hold out).

I’ve tested this theory with a few different cookies: chocolate chip, chocolate chip made with butter and shortening, and peanut butter cookies. This is how it played out:

• For the cookies with shortening, I would not recommend refrigerating at all. It brings out the shortening flavor, which isn’t great. And the shortening alone, makes the cookie pretty fluffy as it bakes.

• Peanut butter cookies often need 30-60 minutes in the fridge to thicken up in order to form for baking, but over-night didn’t do anything for the flavor. The peanut butter flavor is so present in these, not much other flavor needs to come out in them ;)

But with traditional chocolate chip cookie dough a long refrigeration time makes the final product taste soo amazing! It really does, give it a try! They will end up fluffy, chewy and flavorful.

This NY Times article, talks about some of these techniques as well as where I first read about the refrigeration theory. The article actually recommends 36 hours, but seriously who can wait that long?