Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bars

Remember back when I told you about the most amazing chocolate chip cookies in the world? And I said I’d never liked Toll House cookies because they only turned out for me if I made them into bars, and how that was cheating?

Yeah.

Yesterday, I made oatmeal chocolate chip bars to keep myself from cheating.

This started as a recipe for cookies. Simple enough. The problem with me, though, is that I cannot resist cookie dough. Me and dough and a spoon, well, it’s bad news. But if I make cookie bars, then I can dump the whole batch into a pan and it’s gone. No more dough between batches. Thus, no dietary disaster.

I made these to take to an evening with the ladies from my church group. It was easy to whip them up in the morning, cover the whole pan all afternoon, and slice them and put them on a plate on my way out the door. And they were really good. I feel slightly virtuous because they are oatmeal and I made a few changes to them to health them up–I cut the amount of butter and sugar, substituted some all-purpose flour with wheat, cut the chocolate in half, and didn’t eat any dough (ha!).

These are thick and chewy and really good. I didn’t think until after they were baked that a handful of shredded coconut would have made them even better, but I do think that now and plan to add that next time around. The ladies seemed to enjoy them anyway.

To make these, you’ll need:
3/4 cup of unsalted butter (that’s 1 1/2 sticks)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (the real stuff, thankyouverymuch)

3/4 cup whole wheat or white-wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together butter and sugars. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla and mix to combine. Add flours, baking soda, and salt and mix until just combined. Stir in oats and chocolate.

Spray your hands with nonstick spray and pat the dough into a 9 x 13″ pan that’s also been coated with it.  Bake about 35 minutes or until lightly browned and set all the way through. I bake in Pyrex; if you’re using metal, you’ll want to decrease the time a bit.

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