Chocolate Chip Cookie S'mores Bars

Holy crap, guys. Where do I begin with these bars? Tons of flavor, gooey, sweet, delicious and the perfect blend of chocolate chip cookie and classic s'mores in a perfect little bar dessert. This recipe is easy and comes together pretty quick. Plus I had all the ingredients in my pantry so you can always whip these up on the fly. My friend Cindy came over yesterday with her two kids and these bars got rave reviews all around. And I was happen to be able to send them home with some of these treats because otherwise I might have just eaten the whole pan myself.

My pregnancy tiredness and difficulty writing about food (the heartburn and aversions mean I'm just not able to sit down and write up my posts) have persisted for the last month or so, but I wouldn't miss a Secret Recipe Club post. And since it's the second Monday, that means it's reveal day for Group B! What's Secret Recipe Club?  Each Monday a group of bloggers post a recipe they've made from another blogger's repertoire.  Nobody knows who's featuring their blog until that day and it's a fun chance to visit new blogs and try something different. Visit some of the other bloggers in my group by checking out the blog hop at the bottom of this post.  To learn more about Secret Recipe Club, click here. This month my assignment was White Lights on Wednesday. You may recognize the name of this blog because Julie sent me cookies way back when during the 2nd Annual Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. I remembered how good they were and knew I would enjoy visiting Julie's blog. Then I started going through the recipes and found one after another after another that I just had to try. Plus, can we talk about bacon for a second? Because if you don't know what to do with it, just about every other recipe Julie has includes a bacon element. Seriously, how could you not love her? And this might be the hardest time I had choosing a recipe for SRC. I usually get my recipe and post chosen, made and posted with at least a week to spare, sometimes more. But this time I had such difficulty that I didn't make my final decision until yesterday morning--and then I immediately got out the ingredients to bake so I wouldn't change my mind again. So what where my choices? Oh, you could basically just look at Julie's recipe archive and leave it at that, but when I "narrowed it down" some of the recipes that made it on my list were Chicken Parmesan Pizza, Lazy Beef Lasagna, Spinach Dip Pasta, Three Cheese Chicken Penne Bake, Rolo Brownie Pizza, and Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken and Rice. But ultimately these Chocolate Chip Cookie S'mores Bars won my attention.


My adjustments to Julie's recipe were pretty simple and more about preference and what I had going on in my kitchen. My 11 x 8 inch pan was in use (I never transferred the leftover lasagna from the other night into a new dish), so I used a 9 x 13 inch pan without issue. This meant I only needed one sleeve of graham crackers. I omitted the cinnamon because I was in the mood for classic chocolate chip cookies, and I just pressed the cookie dough into the pan to cover the entire bottom layer of graham crackers. My bake time was adjusted a little bit to bake up and set the cookie dough a little bit more because while a slightly underdone cookie is delicious, I don't love raw cookie dough. Follow my adjustments or go back to Julie's original recipe--either way you will LOVE these bars.

Chocolate Chip Cookie S'mores Bars

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
11 Tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 extra large Hershey's Bars, divided (or 5-6 regular Hershey's Bars)
1 1/4 cup mini marshmallows, divided
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 sleeve graham crackers (about 9 crackers)

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or a large bowl with a hand held mixer, beat butter on medium high speed until creamy, then add brown sugar and beat until light an fluffy, about 3-5 minutes, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition. Then beat in vanilla.

Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mixture, mixing just to incorporate and taking care not to overmix.

Chop 1 extra large or 2-3 regular Hershey's bars into small pieces. Add to batter and fold in with 1 cup mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. Chill dough for 10-15 minutes while preparing the pan and preheating the oven.

Line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with parchment or a silicone mat, arrange graham crackers in a layer to completely cover the bottom of the pan, breaking crackers as needed to fit.

Once chilled, turn cookie dough out into pan and press to an even layer on top of graham crackers, using a spatula or clean hands.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 10 minutes. While bars bake, break remaining chocolate bars into the pre-scored pieces. Remove bars from oven and press remaining chocolate and mini marshmallows into the top of the cookie dough.

Return bars to oven and bake for another 10 minutes, until bars are set and marshmallows are gently browned.

Allow bars to cool in pan at room temperature for about an hour. Lift from pan using parchment or silicone mat as handles. Gently slide a flexible cutting mat between bars and parchment/silicone (if desired). Cut into bars.

Makes 24 bars.

Happy Baking,
The Cookie Princess

Printer Friendly Recipe

An InLinkz Link-up