Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

These Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars combine classic chocolate chip cookie flavor with a quick prep for simple treats with caramelized edges and perfectly tender centers.  A batch of 24 bars comes together faster than you can preheat your oven, so you can feed a crowd with ease.

When the mood strikes for cookies, this recipe will give you the shortest path to satisfaction! Making cookie bars instead of individual cookies means no scooping of dough so you can get the pan to the oven in minutes.  This one-bowl recipe even uses melted butter, so no need to wait for your butter to soften on the counter.

Dessert bars are always a treat.  Try these Super Easy Peanut Butter Jelly Bars or these Strawberry Lemon Bars with Shortbread Crust next!

Ingredients

I include ingredient notes here when I think they’ll be helpful, including ways to source, any preparation tips, or why I've chosen a particular ingredient. Be sure to check out the recipe card below for the full list of ingredients and their quantities!

• Salted Butter: I use salted butter from Costco in all of my recipe development.  I find that the variability in salt from brand to brand doesn’t negatively affect the flavor in these cookie bars and it’s so much easier to use the “everyday” butter I have on hand.
• Brown Sugar: Using a greater proportion of brown sugar to granulated sugar makes a chewier cookie bar with an extra dose of molasses flavor.
• Granulated Sugar: Just a bit of granulated sugar creates a balanced sweetness in these cookie bars.
• Vanilla Extract: Measure this with your heart, but I use two teaspoons to give a great base of vanilla flavor.
• Egg and Egg Yolk: Eggs add structure to the cookie dough, and help bind ingredients. An additional egg yolk creates a rich flavor and soft texture in the baked bars.
• All-Purpose Flour: Use your standard everyday flour here.  
• Corn Starch: Just a bit of corn starch helps to create a softer, more cake-y cookie dough.
• Chocolate Chips: Use your favorites here, I keep standard semisweet chocolate chips on hand at all times for cookie emergencies.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F and gather your ingredients for this easy one-bowl preparation.

Spray your half sheet pan or 9” x 13” pan with cooking spray.

In a large, microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter.  In my 1800W microwave, this takes two 30-second bursts with stirring in between.

Add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla and mix well.  Add one whole egg and one egg yolk.

Whisk all of the wet ingredients together well to make a smooth mixture.

Sprinkle the flour evenly over the wet ingredients.  Sprinkle the baking soda, corn starch, and salt evenly over the flour.  Mix well until no dry flour is visible.  I usually switch to a wooden spoon or flexible spatula at this point.

Stir in the chocolate chips until well distributed.

Spread the dough into the prepared pan by pressing it evenly all the way to the edges.  This is a great opportunity to sprinkle on some extra chocolate chips, if desired, so that the chocolate is front and center in the baked treats.

Bake the bars for 28-32 minutes, until the edges are golden and the center isn’t shiny.  A toothpick inserted into the center should come out with only crumbs.

Allow the pan to cool on a rack for one hour.  Run a knife along the edge of the pan and invert the bars onto a cutting board.  Flip the bars over using a second cutting board or platter and slice them into 24 squares with a sharp knife.

Variations

In my mind, there’s not much you can do to improve the basic chocolate chip cookie flavor, but here are some suggestions for variations:

• Add Nuts - Toasted and chopped pecans or walnuts can be stirred in along with the chocolate chip right before baking.
• Add Dried Fruit - Dried cranberries, raisins, or cherries can be chopped and added to the recipe along with (or in place of) the chocolate chips.
• Sprinkle Some Salt - A sprinkling of kosher salt or a coarse sea salt over the top of the bars before baking will add a delicious salty-sweet contrast!

Equipment

This recipe is perfect for a 9” x 13” metal baking pan (one with squared edges rather than rounded edges makes cleaner cuts for your final bars), or a quarter sheet pan.  Quarter sheet pans measure 9 ½ inches by 13 inches.

Serving Suggestions

These chocolate chip cookie bars just beg to be served with milk for an afternoon snack!

The full sheet of the baked cookie bars slices beautifully and is perfect for making large cookie cakes in the shape of numbers or letters!  Use a piece of parchment paper to sketch out a shape, place it over the baked bars, and use the template to slice with a sharp knife.  You can decorate a chocolate chip cookie cake with simple buttercream frosting swirls or a piped message.

Consider bringing a stack of bars to a friend as a pick-me-up!  Wrap a stack with a strip of parchment paper and add a simple bow for a sweet treat.

Storage

Store the sliced bars in an airtight container for up to three days at room temperature.  They can also be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week.  

Frozen dough can be stored for up to three months.  Refrigerated dough should be baked within 24 hours.

Make-Ahead Options

You can make the dough and either freeze it or refrigerate it in the pan or in individual balls.  To freeze it, spread the dough out in the pan and cover it with plastic wrap or roll in individual balls and store in a zip bag.  Refrigerate the spread out dough in the pan with plastic wrap over the top.  It is best to refrigerate the dough already in the pan for the easiest transition to the oven, but don’t forget to remove the plastic wrap before baking! The dough can be refrigerated for up to a day before baking.   

You can spread out the work of baking these cookie bars over two days.  I’ve made 4 batches of these cookie bars at one go and baked them off the next day to feed really big crowds!