These bars are like the lovechild of a brownie and a chocolate chip cookie!Â
Gooey, fudgy, rich, decadent, peanut buttery, chocolatey, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip brownie bars – I could go on with adjectives, but you really need to try them to understand!
This recipe was created to say thank you.
I found out last week that my book made the list of Amazon’s Top 20 Best Cookbooks Of 2015. Seeing my name included on that list when I opened the email was such a shock… I think I probably screamed… and maybe scared the neighbors… I can’t stop smiling… and still can’t believe it!!!
Please forgive me for mentioning the book again… there is no way I can keep this exciting news to myself! Making Amazon’s Top 20 Cookbooks of the year is by far one of the MOST exciting things to happen in all the time I’ve been blogging. And I can’t ever thank you enough.
Before the book came out, my publisher had warned me that because not everyone eats dessert, cookbooks with only desserts rarely sell as well as non-dessert books and that I should keep this in mind and not get my hopes up too far. Neither of us ever expected this amount of incredible success; we have been stunned at how many people have been buying the book.
It’s completely crazy!!!!
Words are failing me once again, and therefore I wish to express my thanks to you all in my usual favored way: through—what else?—dessert!
Thank you to everyone who reads this blog.
Thank you to everyone who has ever made one of the recipes or mentioned the site to a friend.
Thank you to everyone who has bought the book.
But mostly, thank you to everyone simply just for reading. I know full well it’s because of YOU that I’m able to do what I love every day, and I never want to take that for granted. I wish I could send a batch of chocolate chip brownie bars to each of you as a thank-you for making this all possible. Thank you again and again and again. Thank you, a million times over. ♥
Okay, brownie time!
Gooey Chocolate Chip Brownie Bars
Adapted from Chocolate Chip Zucchini BarsÂ
Gooey Chocolate Chip Brownie Bars
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 cup peanut butter OR allergy-friendly alternative
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp flour (almond flour, white, spelt, sorghum, oat, and Bob’s gf all work here)
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 2/3 cup sugar or xylitol
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (mini are best, but regular will also work)
- optional chocolate chips for the top
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 F and grease an 8×8 pan. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the first 3 ingredients until smooth. Add all remaining ingredients, and stir. Only if it’s too dry after stirring to resemble a thick brownie batter, very slowly add a little milk of choice (or water) until the desired texture is reached. Smooth evenly into the prepared pan, then press in some extra chocolate chips if desired. Bake 20 minutes, then remove from the oven. It will look a little undercooked, so do not touch the pan for at least 15 minutes. After this time, it will have firmed up and you can cut without crumbling. After a day, leftovers should be stored in the fridge for freshness.
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Links Of The Day:
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Chocolate Quinoa Breakfast Cups, from the Hello Breakfast Cookbook
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We love you and are so happy for your accomplishment!! You’ve made a lot of our lives easier so it’s not hard to see how much you deserve it!! Congrats!!
Wow, I wish you could send me a batch of these chocolate chip brownie bars too! They look amazing and I’m drooling on my screen right now! Congrats on the cookbook success : )
These look so fudgy and delish! Great pictures. I. Can’t wait to try them.
What a great recipe to wake up to this morning! I made them for breakfast and ate 3. They are a breakfast food, right?!! They’re probably going to be my lunch, too, if I can keep the grandkids out of them. I used finely minced apple for the applesauce, because my daughter didn’t have any, which is probably why I ended up using about 1/4 C rice milk to get a brownie consistency in the batter. Great addition to my Katie Collection.
Thank you so much for making them! I think you are the first! 🙂
All I can say is yummmm… I mean I haven’t tried them yet, but I totally want to eat my computer screen right now! (I can blame that on pregnancy though, right?) Anyway, congratulations to you and I can’t wait to to try these! 🙂
These sound and look soo good, I’ve been looking for a new brownie recipe for ages! Will definitely try out.
Congrats on the success! I have the book and it awesome so I am not surprised 🙂
Wow!! So many congratulations!!!
Haha! I get like that, too, when I get exciting news!! I can’t keep it in and have to share! 😀 That is so awesome that your book is doing so well; you and your terrific cookbook both deserve it!! 😀
Oh, and the bars look really amazing! Can’t wait to make them!!! 🙂
Congrats on your cookbook success! I love your recipes! Quick question, do you think you could substitute powered PB, like PB2 for the real peanut butter in order to lower the fat, or do you think that would change the consistency too much (Or maybe reconstitute it instead of using it dry)? Or maybe lower fat pb?
I used 1/2 cup reconstituted PB2 and 1/2 peanut butter and it turned out really well.
Wait, not everyone eats dessert??? Who are these people? Congratulations on the book!
Aw, Katie. You’re sweet. Congratulations!
What is the light colored thing in the brownie (middle bittom if picture) that looks like it may be a nut? Did you use crunchy peanut butter?
Yup, crunchy… always! 🙂
We love you, Katie! After I bought the book, my mom couldn’t live without it, so she bought one, too!
I’m currently sitting by the oven (literally), waiting for these to come out! The batter is delicious- I had to make myself stop sampling! I used homemade oat flour and unsweetened Silk cashew milk when it was too thick. I’m all out of applesauce, so I used pureed banana. I’ll let you know if it works!
What kind of flour did you use for the ones pictured? They look fantastic!
Congratulations on the Best of 2015 list! You and your book (and everyone who helped) deserve it!
I have a verdict! The banana works beautifully is these! When they’re warm they have a little bit of a banana flavor (which is okay with me), but it probably goes away after they’ve cooled. I couldn’t wait to let them cool… They are amazing! And they even look just as good as yours do, Katie! Thank you! I’m gonna go have some more 😉
Thank you for making them! I think the ones I photographed were a spelt-flour batch, but they might have been the oat-flour batch. Both looked pretty much the same 🙂
Wow, these look much better than the brownies I made for a recent gathering. I’ll try your recipe next time I am asked to make dessert for a party. They look so nice and gooey!!
Congratulations on the book news!