These Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars are meant to be shared! Why spend all that time scooping chocolate chip cookie dough when you can make chocolate chip cookie bars?
My first experience with brown butter was when I made a brown butter sage sauce for three cheese tortellini. Ever since I started making that sauce, I’ve wanted to try baking with brown butter. I’ve heard that it gives baked goods a great flavor. I’ve seen brown butter frosting, brown butter cookies, and brown butter brownies. I need to make 6 dozen goodies for this weekend so I thought this would be the perfect time to make a pan of brown butter chocolate chip cookie bars.
These cookie bars fill a jelly roll pan so I can get a lot of bars in one fell swoop. I don’t remember the last time I made chocolate chip cookies! If we are craving them, I make cookie bars instead.
This brown butter chocolate chip cookie bars recipe starts with brown butter. Brown butter is made by melting butter in a pan over heat until the milk solids are browned. If you want more instructions for exactly how to check out this video: How To Brown Butter
These brown butter chocolate chip cookie bars are a bit more cake-like than gooey. I added 1/2 cup of flour since I am going to be transporting them and they will be served on a tray. If you like the more fudgey type bars, try making these with only 4 1/2 cups of flour.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons water
- 1 cup shortening
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Brown the butter in a saucepan, pour into a large bowl and allow it to cool to room temp.
- Mix baking soda and water together and set aside.
- Cream together butter, shortening and sugars.
- Add eggs and vanilla, mix well.
- Add the baking soda and water mixture.
- Mix in salt and add flour one cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Spread batter in a greased jelly roll pan.
- Bake at 350° F for 20-25 minutes. Do not overbake.
Notes
Nutrition
Love cookie bars? Try these next:
Daniela says
What can I use in repleacement for the shortening? maybe all butter would work?
Diane Crammer says
Of course I cannot find that size.
Diane Crammer says
What size is a jelly roll pan???
Thanks
Diane
Tonia says
My pan is a Wilton 16x12x1.
Diane Crammer says
Thanks much!!!!!!
Diane
dina says
love chocolate chip bars. they look great!
Tonia says
Thanks Dina! So do I!
Sofia L. :) says
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Was just wondering what to bake for church on Sunday. My sweet tooth wanted something with chocolate. These must be perfect. I love bars, because they are time savers! No individual cookies to scoop or roll. 🙂
If you ever bake your own bread; try my Scoop Bread – no kneading, just scoop the dough into loaf pans!
http://sofs-corner.blogspot.com
Tonia says
Thanks Sofia! I hope you enjoyed them as much as we did. I’ve never made my own bread! Can you believe it? I’ve made breadsticks, pizza dough, banana bread, pumpkin bread but never regular, homemade bread. I will have to give your recipe a try…if I can figure out the conversions! I’ve never measured flour by weight. 🙂
Sofia L. :-) says
Pizza dough, pretzels, bread sticks – that counts as bread. 😉
Yeah, lots of bakers I’ve talked with always weigh their ingredients. It’s got something to do with the gluten in the flour. Gluten is “natural yeast” in the flour, and the older the flour is , the less gluten – i.e. the bread won’t rise. Old flour weighs less, since it’s more dry. The drier it is – the more liquid is needed to make a nice dough.
So, 1 cup of flour this month, might give another result next month, if you know what I mean. That’s why you weigh it, to make sure the amount gets right. Also, that means you might need more or less flour depending on how old it is.
There’s probably an even longer explanation to this if you ask a scientist… 😉 About chemical reactions, and such. But this is what I read in some article about baking, that a baker wrote. Let’s just don’t care about it, and instead enjoy our baking! 😀
Linda says
Yummy looking. Think this would be easy for my girls to make and take for snack at youth group!
Tonia says
Thanks Linda! Yes, it is easy and it can feed a crowd!