Easy, One-bowl, Colourful Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Categories : baked sweets, desserts & sweet snacks, easy peasy, Recipes

Super easy, fudgy and chewy cookie bars with colourful button-shaped chocolates, and chocolate chips. Also, only one bowl for mixing. What’s not to love?

Easy, One-bowl, Colourful Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: A close view of the newly cut cookie bars, still arranged next to each other on the baking paper. The paper is set on a wooden chopping board. The top of the cookies is adorned with colourful chocolate candies.

This weekend is the last before Lent, and Monday is a holiday. It’s called Clean Monday here, and it’s sort of the same as Ash Wednesday in other parts of the world. Basically it’s the last day before the big fast that leads up to Easter.

Easy, One-bowl, Colourful Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: An ingredient shot, with a mixing bowl at the top left of the photo, containing the cookie bar batter and a spatula. To the right of the bowl is a used whisk, and at the bottom of the photo are a small bowl with lots of chocolate candies (M&M’s, Smarties etc) with lots more scattered around.

On Sunday there is a huge carnival in one of the larger cities of Greece. People wear fancy dress costumes, there’s a parade with large –supposedly humorous, but actually quite kitsch- floats, and it’s one hell of a street party. Think Rio but on a smaller scale, with more modest clothing and worse dancing.

Easy, One-bowl, Colourful Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: The cookie bars as they came out of the oven, before they were cut, still in the baking tin. The surface of the cookie is colourful with lots of candies on it. Around the tin are some candies on the wooden surface and in a bowl, and some chocolate chips also on the surface and in a small bowl.

In Greece the Carnival period lasts the whole three weeks before Clean Monday. So in fact there are fancy dress parties and all sorts of events in that time. Last Sunday I decided to take Westley for a walk in the centre of Athens, and we stumbled upon one such event in the park. It was for children, and it was pretty crazy! Live music, kids in fancy dress, merry-go-rounds, pop-corn stands, balloons and a general party atmosphere. Westley was quite amazed at everything, and did some serious nose work while trying to hoover up all the tasty morsels that had escaped kiddie fingers.

We didn’t stay in that spot for long, as it was getting a bit too much for me, ahem, Westley. So we moved to the National Gardens located just a short distance away, so he could enjoy the beautiful greenery and lovely-for-him animal smells (there is a mini zoo of sorts with goats and rabbits – yeah, weird).

Easy, One-bowl, Colourful Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: Eight cookie bars, arranged in two rows of four, on the baking paper they were baked on. Around them are the scattered candies. In the top right corner is a small glass bottle of milk and some stripy paper straws.

Anyway, the whole escapade made me think of carnival and the colourful madness that goes with it. So I thought I’d transfer that mood to my next recipe. Thus, I present to you these colourful cookie bars!

Easy, One-bowl, Colourful Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars www.thefoodiecorner.gr Photo description: Same set up as main photo, but instead of white feathers at the bottom of the photo is a small party horn with a pink feather attached to it.

Easy to throw together, easy to bake, easy to eat! I may have eaten two baking tins worth myself. Not in one go, but pretty impressively quickly. I did give three bars to the neighbours though, so I’m not that bad. Right?

If you’re here, enjoy the long Clean Monday weekend! If you’re not, well these cookie bars can make a regular weekend a bit better!

Ingredients

100gr butter, melted

100gr brown sugar, granulated

100gr dark brown sugar, soft

1 egg

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

120gr flour, all purpose

40gr chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate

110gr approx., button shaped chocolates (M&Ms, Smarties etc)

Show me more ideas and suggestions

Button choccies

They differ so much in size and weight that I’ve put only an estimation of the quantity here. You can eyeball it if you want, or keep in mind I used 90gr peanut M&Ms plus about 20gr of very small hard coated chocolates (see pic). The small ones kind of get lost, so stick with the larger if you have to choose. Keep some out of the batter in order to sprinkle over the top before baking (or after – see the relevant step for more info).

Step 1

Preheat oven to 160C fan assisted (180C conventional). Lightly grease a 25x18cm baking tin and line it with grease proof paper so that two opposite edges come up over the sides.

Step 2

Put the melted butter in a large bowl and add the sugars. Whisk, and add the egg while whisking some more. Whisk in the salt and then the baking powder.

Step 3

Fold in the flour until almost completely incorporated.

Step 4

Set aside some chocolate chips and buttons for sprinkling, and fold in the rest.

Step 5

Spread the batter into the baking tin patiently because it will be quite stiff. Sprinkle the chocolate chips and buttons. No need to press them in as the batter will rise a bit.

{If you want you can sprinkle the choccies over the top at the end. Sometimes the colour runs during baking or the chocolates sink in too much and disappear. So if you want them to look pretty, press some into the soft surface while the bars are still warm after coming out of the oven. This is only necessary for appearances, not taste!}

Step 6

Bake for 25 minutes and let the cookie cool completely in the tin. Turn out by pulling the two sides of the grease proof paper, place on a chopping board and cut into 12 bars. Serve with a glass of cold milk!

Notes
- You could use only brown sugar if it’s easier to find, but the dark sugar gives something extra to the taste.
- You could also omit the baking powder for flatter, denser bars.
- Baking time is for this size tin. If you use a smaller one you might want to leave it in a couple more minutes. Don’t use a larger one for these quantities or the bars will be too thin.