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These Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars are the most delicious gooey bars you’ll ever make. They’re easy cookie bars start with the best chocolate chip cookie recipe and are filled with gooey chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. They’re a gooey bar from heaven!
Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Treats like this one are some of my families favorite recipes. We all love chocolate chip cookies and gooey bars – which makes this recipe perfect because it the best combination of the two. These bars taste like a gooey chocolate chip cookie and I cannot think of anything better.
These bars have sweetened condensed milk and milk chocolate chips in the center to make them SO gooey and rich. They have layers of chocolate chip cookie, chocolate, and gooey-ness! I know you’re going to absolutely love these cookie bars.
Ingredients Needed
- Flour: I always use all-purpose flour in my recipes.
- Sugar: This recipe calls for both brown sugar and regular granulated sugar.
- Sweetened Condensed Milk – you can use regular or low/non-fat but be sure not to buy evaporated! They’re in the same spot on the shelf so read the can.
- Butter: I use unsalted typically. If you only have salted butter – omit the salt from the recipe.
- Chocolate Chips: Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips are my favorite kind of chocolate chips to use in recipes like this one!
Variations
You can use either Hershey Bars or chocolate chips for the center.
I love to make brown butter chocolate chip cookies for this but you can skip browning – just melt the butter.
How to make Cookie Bars
- Make the cookie dough – this one starts with brown butter! Simply brown the butter and stir all the cookie ingredients together.
- Add your chocolate chips – any kind!
- Press some of the dough in the bottom of the pan, then top with sweetened condensed milk and some Hershey candy bars – or more chocolate chips.
- Press the rest of the dough on top and bake until golden brown.
Expert Tips
- If you want to add some variation in the chocolate you use, feel free to try white chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, or dark chocolate chips.
- I always love adding some flaky sea salt to chocolate recipes like this one! Also, a scoop of vanilla ice cream goes great with pretty much any recipe, but especially this one!
- If you want to mix anything else in like walnuts, or pecans, that’s great! Just add a half a cup of whatever else you’d like!
Storage
- Store bars in an airtight container at room temperature.
- Bars are freezable – place in an airtight container between layers of wax paper so they don’t stick.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars Recipe
My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe made into a gooey bar. This bar cookie is off the hook amazing – gooey, chocolatey, and perfect!
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226g) unsalted butter , melted
- ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (200g) packed brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups (372g) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups (255g) chocolate chips (or mini chocolate chips)
- 1 (14 ounce can) sweetened condensed milk
- 1 4.4 ounce large Hershey bar (or smaller bars to make that same size) (or more chocolate chips)
Instructions
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, about 6 minutes, until it becomes brown in color. It will foam, reduce, then foam again. Once it’s done cooking the foam is a light brown and it will dissipate after you remove it from the heat. Once it starts to brown, keep stirring so it doesn’t burn. Let sit for about 5 minutes to cool.
- Pour into an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. While still hot, add both sugars and mix on low until combined. Let sit to cool for a few minutes.
- While butter mixture is cooling, combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir and set aside.
- Turn mixer (with butter mixture bowl attached) on low. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing completely. Mix in vanilla extract. Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Line a 9×13” baking pan with foil and spray with cooking spray for easy removal.
- Press half the cookie dough in the prepared pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk over the top of the bottom layer (be careful to leave about 1/4” edge around the pan so the milk doesn’t touch the foil), then break up the chocolate bar and drop pieces over the top. Break up the remaining cookie dough and place on top of milk. Press with your hands to flatten. It will mostly cover but not completely cover the bottom layer.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake for about 30-35 minutes until the tops of the bars start to get golden brown. Cool completely before slicing into bars.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
- Store bars in an airtight container at room temperature.
- Bars are freezable – place in an airtight container between layers of wax paper so they don’t stick.
Recipe Nutrition
Serving: 1bar | Calories: 172kcal | Carbohydrates: 24g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Cholesterol: 23mg | Sodium: 74mg | Potassium: 30mg | Sugar: 15g | Vitamin A: 190IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 19mg | Iron: 0.8mg
Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate
I love this idea. I just made this but instead of chocolate chips, I used butterscotch chips with the Hershey bar chocolate and the two taste great together 🙂
That’s a great combo! I’m glad you enjoyed them!
Ummmmmmmm. Your pictures stopped me cold, the 8-year-old was saying, what’s the matter, mom? This is a drop-everything-make-these-now recipe. Good thing I have 4 kids to help me not eat them all. Just wondering – does the fat-free SCM change the taste or outcome? I figure, once you got all that butter and chocolate, what does a little fat in the SCM matter.
It doesn’t make a difference. For some reason I always buy the Fat-Free, I think b/c the original fudge recipe was on that can. Now it’s just habit. Regular won’t matter! 🙂
Your bars look so neat and beautiful! I made these bars, and added walnuts to the middle and butterscotch chips to the dough. They were delicious and gooey as promised. Maybe I just couldn’t wait and cool them long enough to get those nice lines of chocolate like you have in the photos. 🙂
https://tryhardkitchen.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/brown-butter-chocolate-chip-cookie-bars/
I’m so impatient I chill them often to slice them pretty! Then I microwave them for gooey, lol!! Glad you enjoyed them!
I couldn’t comment underneath my post and your reply. Thanks for the other tips! I will try those!!
While the brown butter base was good, I didn’t care for the sweetened condensed milk.
Oh my I love that stuff! 🙂 You could totally substitute dulce de leche or salted caramel next time! Or just make the bars without the filling.
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