What's Cooking Wednesday: Coffeehouse Cookie Bars

I've been making a dessert on Wednesday for Wednesday night Huddles during the school year for about 8 years now. 

That's a lot of baking for a self-proclaimed non-baker. 

My success (if you'd like to call it that) comes from the fact that I'm pretty good at finding easy-peasy recipes that are super-delicious. And it occurred to me that maybe other non-bakers might like to share in my awesome, easy-bake finds so I'm starting a new series here on Moments with the McCalls..."What's Cooking Wednesdays"!

You might be wondering why I'm not doing this on my recipe blog, Eating At The Taj McCall (which you can find HERE).  I debated back and forth, and for now, since I'm having a hard time with the writer's block it'll give me another post each week and Eating At The Taj McCall is my "fast" blog. The blog where I just whip out a recipe without a photo and with a family rating. There will be no rating here. I might mention how the dessert was received, but I'm not taking ratings. I don't think my sensitive baker's heart can handle it. :)

I made these bars last week for the first Huddle. I always make the bars on the first Huddle of the year. I can't remember if I've posted them here or not, but they're good enough to share again.  That's another thing, I'm going to be posting the recipe a week after I've made them. That way I can get it posted early on Wednesday and I'll know how everyone like them. This particular recipe is from a PAMPERED CHEF cookbook I bought soon after I got married.  It's an oldie, but a goodie.

Coffeehouse Cookie Bars:

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups, packed, brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

1 bag (11.5 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 (1.5-2 oz.) favorite chocolate candy bar, chopped (I use Snickers because they are my favorite, but you can really use any candy bar. Once or twice I've made it with Rollos because someone was allergic to peanuts.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Mix well and set aside. In a mixer, blend butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in 1 1/3 cup of the chocolate chips and 1 1/3 cups of the pecans. Spread mixture* into a large bar pan. Press the remaining chocolate chips, pecans, and the candy bars lightly into the top of the batter. Bake for 20-23 minutes or until golden brown. (Be sure to not overcook these. Sometimes it's hard to tell because the center doesn't really change color, but, trust me, these get really dry if overcooked!) Cool completely in pan and cut into bars. You could probably also make these into cookies, but I'm lazy, and bars are easier. 

So there you go, my very first "What's Cooking Wednesday!" post! I'm off to bake this week's dessert (Lemon Zucchini Pound Cake) and find my house since I lost it yesterday amongst the hustle and bustle of "market day" (aka: The Day I Run Errands) and a surprise trip to the Tri-State Fair. 

* I'm volunteering up at the science lab at the kids' school on Thursday afternoons. I learned last week that a mixture is something where two or more things are combined, but the elements mixed can be separated. A solution is where two or more things are combined, but they cannot be separated. Technically, a batter should be called a "solution", but it didn't sound right in the recipe so I used the word "mixture". You just never really stop learning! Then again, maybe recipes are exempt from scientific language even though all baking is really science. 

** It's two for one on the recipes today! I've added a new RECIPE to Eating At The Taj McCall!