This is me finding a solution to your Halloween candy dilemma. It’s a problem, right? I mean… how are we supposed to live surrounded by the mini Snickers bars? It’s entirely distracting. Snickers breakfast lunch and dinner. Let’s not talk about it. Instead, let’s add butter and flour and disguise our Halloween stash into chewy sweet and salty cookie bars… all suited and booted for sharing and giving.
Suit and boot. That’s what we do around here.
Let’s meditate on the simplicity of this recipe.
Ok… that’s enough, we’ve got cookie bars to get in the oven.
Think of these cookie bars as a giant press-in chocolate chip. Buttery, crisp around the edges, filled with an obscene amount of candy. You know how we do.
Eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract are the usual suspects.
We’re blending molasses into granulated sugar to deepen the flavor of the cookie bars. That hint of base bitterness is just the ticket.
Yes… there’s still hella candy.
Whisked eggs, butter, and vanilla meets flour, sugar, and leavening. Stir stir!
The batter will be rather thick and glossy. That’s right. Stir in a handful of candy and press into the pan for baking… but not before adding like waaaay more chocolate.
Baked up chewy and golden. All the candy, baked in bars, for sharing (and caring).
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Candy Bar Cookie Bars
- Prep Time: 0 hours
- Cook Time: 0 hours
- Total Time: 0 hours
- Yield: 12 bars 1x
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 3 tablespoons molasses
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups coarsely chopped Halloween candy
- coarse sea salt for topping
Instructions
- Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 9×13-inch baking pan. Line with parchment paper, leaving two flaps hanging over the edges of the pan. Grease and flour the parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate small bowl use your fingers to work together sugar and molasses until no molasses clumps remain and the sugar is tinted a light brown. Add the sugar to the dry ingredients and stir.
- In a separate medium bowl whisk together melted butter, eggs, and vanilla extract.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. Mixture will be thick and glossy.
- Stir in a scant 1 cup of coarsely chopped candy.
- Use your fingers to evenly press the dough into the pan. Top with the remaining chopped candy.
- Bake for 27 to 30 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. Allow to cool for 15 minutes in the pan before slicing into bars. Wrap individually and store at room temperature for up to three days.
68 Responses
these came out a mess left them in for way longer because the center was still soup and now they are really dark… what did I do wrong?
Even the candies you are not fond of taste good in this recipe.
Joy, I have crazy candy. Do you think it would work to freeze a batch?
Ummmm Easter candy works too, right? Just no jelly beans.
Just made these. Followed directions exactly. Pulled them out of the oven after 30 minutes. They are brown but still look gooey in areas. Hopefully they’ll be ok when they cool??
hey there you’re really making hungry…. ur lucky to live alone….. you have allllllllll to ur self
I’ve had this sitting underneath the bag of candy in our pantry since you posted it….finally baked them yesterday and they are so good. And really, who doesn’t warm up for pie with snickers….thanks!
This is so cute they are perfect for younger children too!?
I think I’m defiantly going to have to try this one
Hi Joy,
these look and sound delicious! And I’m eager to bake those – but: since I live in Europe I don’t own a cup measure so I just started converting the cups into gramms and I’m really puzzled:
240 g flour with 450 g sugar?? and 225 g butter?
The amount of sugar seems huge – keeping in mind we still are going to add candies galore…
Could you pleaseplease confirm?
Thanks a lot and all the best,
Sina from Germany
By the way: I made your banana bread the other weekend and it was won-der-ful!!
I have to agree – I often make boterkoek and the batter looks like the picture but has equal amounts (250g) flour, melted butter and sugar … and boterkoek is definitely sweet enough! But the extra sugar in this would give it a grainer texture like a soft, chewy cookie, while boterkoek tends to be smooth-textured (when I cut mine it looks as smooth as glass inside). So it may be right – but it’s made for the American palate :-)
I think you’re funny to think they will last 3 days…. :-)
We made this and are deeply indebted to you for solving much of our getting-rid-of-candy needs. And also, entertaining my kids. It took my 2- and 4-year-old 20 full minutes to chop up their candy with butter knives. Awesome.
YUM! you never fail to amaze me with your ever so indulgent recipes!
These look so good!! I think I might have to make these even when it is not Halloween :)
Hi Joy! I just made these cookie bars today, and they are ah-mazing! I didn’t have molasses, so I substituted 3 tbsp. of honey and added a tbsp. of instant coffee–delicious! Thanks for the amazing recipe :D
~ Grace S.
https://www.sweetgraceslife.com/halloween-candy-cookie-bars/
I couldn’t be any happier that I told the last few kids I was out of candy (to keep for myseeeeelf!).
These look so good! I tried this with brownies but thought that the chocolate masked the candy too much. Next year I’m trying it this way!
Same question about the molasses as I have none of it, is there a substitute or can I leave it out?
Well these look delicious!
These look great! For those of us that struggle to find molasses, I believe just using dark or light brown sugar is also possible, correct? Do you know how this would need to be altered to allow just brown sugar instead of white+molasses?
This recipe reminds me of the first Christmas I spent with my sister-in-law and we were hosting a bake-a-thon and she made very similar cookies! Nostalgia moment :) I will pass this along to her
This is amazing! I can’t wait to try baking it.
I made these last night to take to the school bake sale since I had all the ingredients and loads of candy….good timing on the blog post! I used a glass pyrex 9×13 pan and it def wasn’t done at 27 min….or 30….or 40! The middle was still soft so I wrapped the edges with foil and put it in again for another 15 min….not sure if it’s b/c it wasn’t a metal pan? Anyway, would love to hear other ppl’s experiences….maybe I did something wrong! My oven is usually pretty reliable (But they were tasty! And I saw a dude happily gobbling one after he bought it at the bake sale.)
I think the recipe may have a typo. I added an extra cup of flour because my batter was way too thin and looked nothing like her photo! I’ll be putting it in the oven soon!
an extra cup of flour? i don’t think this recipe needs it. how did you bars come out?
Thank you for posting this I’m going on about 40 minutes and I was wondering if I did something wrong I also am not using metal. I’m using a glass pan.
These pictures look fabulous, as do all of yours! I made a pretty similar candy cookie bar recipe a few weeks ago, check them out on my blog! :)
Sydney
http://www.forloveofbaking.com
For the Love of Baking
Yummy!
These are fantastic! Just baked a batch this afternoon with my 5 1/2 and 4 year olds. They had a blast ripping open and chopping up the candy. And of course, they are delish!!
Yes yes yes!!! These look soooo yummy!
xoxo
Taylor
Oh goodness. Now I wish more than ever that my apartment had an oven!
This would be demolished at any party!!
Rxx
http://www.peppermintdolly.wordpress.com
What an awesome way to use up any leftover Halloween candy! Looks delicious! Pinned for later
This looks like one of the nicest thing I have ever seen. I am going to make it this weekend it looks that good!
https://whatmaisiedid.blogspot.co.uk/
It’s like the dreams came true in one piece of cake! :)
Love the use of ‘hella’ in this post.
This is a great idea! And the photos are lovely as usual.
hella is real.
Is there a substitute for molasses I could use? I have some golden syrup at home. Or perhaps brown sugar instead?
you could use brown sugar!
Would it be the same amount? As in 3 tbsp of brown sugar rather than 3 tbsp of molasses? Thanks so much for replying! :)
Oh Joy. You are sooooo bad!
We don’t get trick-or-treaters, so I didn’t buy any candy this year, but after seeing this recipe, I think I need to go out and buy that candy now… ;)
I just made cookie dough and added some of our candy and froze it. I’ll have to try this one next! Snickers for breakfast, lunch and dinner sounds perfect! I’m sure my kids would love that – lol!!
Funny, I don’t have candy right now, but now I need to go by some. This needs to appear in my body!
Uh … leftover candy?
you right…
These look sooo delicious!
Check out my Christmas giveaway | https://laurenslittleblogs.blogspot.co.uk/
xx
perfect.
So good .. so so sooo good!!
I made my husband take all of our leftovers to work so I wouldn’t eat it all. Wish I had saved all the chocolate ones now!
Leftover anything in the house is dangerous for me! Great idea to use em up :)
https://www.youtube.com/sparklesandsuch26
I love the addition of Reese cups in there! Those are my favourite!
I want to press my body into that dough and eat my way out. Don’t say it. That just got weird.
Absolutely brilliant idea of recycling Halloween sweets! Another great baking recipe for me and my boys!
https://highheelsbrownhair.blogspot.co.uk/
I have seen plenty of candy bar blondies (I posted one today) and brownies, but never a cookie bar…I love this idea! I still have so much left that I may have to give these a try.
Although the candy bars are nicely disguised, I can’t say I won’t still be eating them for breakfast, just in cookie bar form. It’s more acceptable, yes?
I’ll just take the whole pan, please…
This would make any kid’s school party the best, ever. I usually let my Halloween chocolate sit in a cupboard until it loses all colour and can be used as a natural mallet, so this is a much better use of this “season’s bounty”.
Can I leave out molasses?I don’t have that at home.
I love that you put molasses in these! And I have so.much.candy from my daughter’s trick or treating. And being the dessert blogger that I am, I always have so much candy, but right now we have about 25 pounds worth, up from my normal 10 :) Pinned! They look AWESOME!
Oh my goodness, these look delicious! Such a great idea too. I agree, left over Halloween candy is so distracting (although if anything those cookies look even more tempting….)
This looks sooo good! I don’t have any Halloween sweets left as I live in flats so no one trick or treats. But I’m going to make this anyway!
India / Touchscreens & Beautyqueens
Oh dang. These look amazing. I would like 3 giant pieces for breakfast right now.
xx, Hailey
This is terrible! I was so good lately, sticking to whole grain recipes, substituting coconut oil for butter.
And you post this????
I might have to sin!!!
Joy, you are an angel! Seriously can not wait to try this!
I been thinking of the same thing too. Candy bar desserts are filling my kitchen right now as means of a clean up . However the real reason is pure sweet greed!
Oh my, this is evil goodness.
Ohhhhh. Heck ya.