True story:
I was once on national television… in my underwear. 😕
It was when I was 5 years old, on a popular children’s show similar to Sesame Street. The goal of the segment was to teach young children how to get dressed by themselves: this was in the early 90s, therefore footage is thankfully not immortalized online.
Possibly even more fun than the filming process was when the show aired and everyone reconvened for a viewing party. One child’s mother brought in three plates of gooey chocolate chip cookie bars for the occasion, and not a single person left that day without having asked for the recipe. The bars would become a staple in my childhood home for many years afterwards.
Today’s recipe is a healthy makeover of those addictive chocolate chip cookie bars.
I played around to find the perfect amount of applesauce to lower the fat, calories, and sugar while still maintaining the bars’ seductively gooey texture. The subtly-strong flavor of the surprise ingredient—molasses!—takes these bars completely over the top.
They are sure to win you over!
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups spelt or all-purpose flour (180g) (oat flour works; the texture is just a bit gummier)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup rolled oats (20g)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar or date sugar (90g)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup to 1 cup chocolate chips, depending on how chocolatey you want the bars to be
- 1/2 cup vegetable or coconut oil (80g)
- 1/2 cup applesauce (120g)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract (9g)
- pinch stevia, or 2 tbsp sugar of choice
- 3 tbsp blackstrap or regular molasses (43g)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line the bottom of an 8×8 pan with parchment paper, then set aside. In a mixing bowl, stir together the first 6 ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together all liquid ingredients, then pour wet over dry and stir to form a batter. Spoon into the prepared pan. Bake 25 minutes. Makes 15-24 squares, depending on how large you cut them. (The ones in the photos are cut from 24.) I love the unique molasses flavor in these bars, but you can always substitute pure maple syrup or agave or honey (vegans don’t use honey) if you’d prefer.
Link Of The Day:
Katie, you are beautiful! And inspirational. Thank you for sharing your time and life with us.
These bars look scrumptious (along with everything else on here…I am thinking about making the kale brownies this week. Of course, I will not share the secret ingredient until it is generally admitted that they are good! 😉 ).
YES, bar cookies! No idea why they are so much denser and richer than normal cookies, but wow, awesome. Loving your take on them.
These look great! I think I will try them with a gluten free mix that I make that I find works well in sub for AP flour and let you know how it goes 🙂
The picture is amazing!
Please report back on the GF flour version.
Hi! Reporting back on my gluten-free experience: I followed CCK’s recipe, except for the flour and sugar. For flour I used brown rice flour and cornstarch: a little more than 1/4 cornstarch and the rest brown rice flour. For sugar, I subbed 1/4 honey because I feel better when I eat “clean”. They turned out well, overall. The texture was a little crumbly, but the majority of them stayed in a firm bar shape. I wasn’t crash-hot on the taste, but it could be just because I don’t always like the taste of molasses in baked goods for some reason. :/ I hope this helps 🙂 P.S. It was really fun to make; thanks CCKatie! 🙂
Update: I shared them with my Mom and she loved them!!
Thanks Katie, I’m going to try those tonight to send in the lunch boxes tomorrow 🙂
We have recently been told we can’t have eggs anymore (on top of wheat, dairy and various other things), so your site has become even more of a goldmine!!
Thank you 🙂
PS, picture is awesome (and you are truly pretty), I will check her website and share 🙂
Thanks! The no-egg thing really does get easier the longer you do it. Good luck!
That’s a really pretty picture of you!!
You have no idea how much I am craving these now…
Besides the brown sugar, I actually have ALL the ingredients to make these babies! I don’t know if it’s just your photography tricks or what, but that looks like a satisfying enough size to where I don’t think I’d want to cut it any bigger or I’d feel like I was eating one of those Mrs. Field’s cookie cake slices sold in the cases.
Oh, and by the way, the portrait is ridiculous. Ya look like a flippin’ model and I just want to sleep on your insane locks. I don’t know anyone that has hair that crazy beautiful, no matter how much healthy fat they’re consuming. I think you were just blessed.
Aw Eva, thank you! That really means a lot to me :).
You’re quite welcome! I’m a self-proclaimed hair expert, so I NEVER give out compliments because I always seem to find a flaw. But yours, if only maintaining my curly blue hair could transform into your hair I’d be happy.
We need a “create great hair” recipe, dasss what.
It’s a little late to reply, but you can make your own brown sugar with molasses and white sugar. That’s all it is! I haven’t used store bought brown sugar in years!
These look delicious and are a must try!! I must say that in you recent photos, you look absolutely gorgeous and happy!
Thank you so much!
These look delicious! Are the nutrition facts based on cutting them into 24 squares?
Just made these. What should the consistency be like when finished baking? Mine don’t seem fully cooked after 27 min.
Have they set up for you yet? They should be a little undercooked when you first take them out, which prevents the bars from getting too hard an dry, as cookies/bars continue to cook while they cool.
They did continue to cook and tasted great. I think I could have cooked them for a minute or two more as they weren’t cooked evenly throughout. Thank you!!!
Firstly- man those choc chip bars look to fie for, but the photo of you is even prettier! What a perfect author photo!
I just made these and it was a real fail. I substituted white whole wheat flour because I was all out of Spelt and regular All Purpose. I could tell things were going down hill after I mixed the dry and wet ingredients because it was a crumbly mess. I added about 1/2 cup of almond milk and that made the dough into a cookie dough consistency. I pressed the dough into a 8×8 pan and cooked them first for 15 minutes and then another 5 minutes. I left them cool and I could tell when I started to cut them that it was a gummy mess. I really didn’t want to trash them and waste all those good vegan chocolate chips (the horror!) so I cut it all up into small pieces and put them on a cookie sheet. Maybe I could turn these into biscotti? No dice. I cooked them at 15 minute increments for a total of 45 minutes! They did harden up but they taste terrible. I was so disappointed. I guess the moral of the story is DO NOT USE WHITE WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR.
Unfortunately, I can’t vouch for the results with any substitutions. I also tend to stay away from white whole wheat flour because I’m not a fan of how it acts in recipes.
Seems like you really wrecked a good recipe with that one substitution
Molasses is such a wonderful ingredient to sneak in. It does wonders and you don’t need much. Can’t wait to try these! The chocolate chips on top look like they have the perfect amount of “melt.” 🙂
These look really good. The picture of you looks lovely too. You look so pretty and natural.
I tried these today with the oat flour and gf oats and they are wonderful! I did end up increasing the bake time by about 15 minutes because they just seemed too gooey after 25, but I really like the texture. They are a little gooey but still hold together as a bar. yum!
Wow, Katie, you’re gorgeous!