These chewy, moist peanut butter cookie bars are packed with 3 kinds of chocolate chips. Serious crowd pleasers in every way!
And by the way… when I say Big Batch, I mean BIG BATCH.
This recipe make 3 half-sheet jelly roll pans. You know, the big ones. The 13×18″ones that are rimmed all the way around. (These: Nordic Ware Half-Sheet Pans)
That means 72 big cookie bars, or 288 small ones!
I occasionally have to bake for a lot of people at once. That often translates to batch after batch of cookies and hours at the oven.
This deliciously easy recipe eliminates so much work, without sacrificing any flavor or texture!
And on a day like today, where my well is dry and I can’t wash these dishes after I use them, there is no other way I could have done this baking that needed to be done.
I am so excited about these cookie bars, I can’t even tell you. I feel like I just found extra hours in the day! (What? Your day isn’t 27 hours long? Try these! Maybe it will be!) and am already looking forward to all the flavor variations that are flooding my brain.
Give these a try next time you need to feed a crowd, or even if you just want to stock your freezer or treat your neighbors!
Also, I could rewrite these measurements into cups, but what I really want you to do is go get a kitchen scale. They are not expensive (under $20!) and they make this kind of baking so quick and easy and practically fool-proof.
You’ll be glad you got one after the first use! (And if you love to bake, it will open up a whole new world of european recipes for you!)
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 pounds all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 1/2 pounds (6 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 1/2 pounds peanut butter
- 1 pound brown sugar
- 1 pound sugar
- 6 large eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 pound (16oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips*
- 1 pound (16oz) milk chocolate chips*
- 1 pound (16oz) white chocolate chips (or peanut butter chips!)*
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line 3 11x17" half-sheet baking pans (or 9 9x9" square pans - disposable foil ones would work great here!) with parchment and set aside.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; Set aside.
In the bowl of your large stand mixer, beat together the butter, peanut butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla until smooth.
(If you don't have a big mixer, you can absolutely do this by hand in a big bowl! You will get a bit of a workout, but then you can just eat a few more bars guilt-free! Ha!)
Mix in the flour mixture until just well combined and then stir in all the chocolate chips.
Divide the dough evenly between the pans and then spread out until smooth (use your hands, dipped in cold water, to simplify this process!).
Bake each pan for about 18-20 minutes, until the edges are light golden brown and the top is just no longer shiny.
You don't want to over-bake these or they will all be dried out. Better to sacrifice a few slightly undercooked center bars (I'm sure you can think of something to do with those!) to get the rest of the pan perfectly baked, than to end up with a pan full of dried out cookie bars!
Let the bars cool completely in the pans and then cut and serve or store in airtight containers in the freezer for up to 3 months!
*When you are measuring out the chocolate chips, use what you have. If a bag of white chocolate chips is 14oz, just add a bit more of another kind if you want. You don't need to open a new bag... it doesn't have to be exact, as long as the total is about 3 pounds!
https://sweetannas.com/2014/02/big-batch-triple-chocolate-peanut-butter-cookie-bars.htmlrecipe adapted from The Fountain Avenue Kitchen
