13 Delicious Bar Cookie Recipes that Can Serve a Crowd (2024)

FAQs

What pan is best for bar cookies? ›

9-by-13-inch baking pans: To make bar cookies, you obviously need a pan to bake them in. I prefer metal, straight-sided pans that truly measure 9 by 13. Many pans have rounded corners, dramatically-sloped sides or are slightly smaller in dimension than their labeling might suggest.

Bar cookies baked in insulated baking pans often don't brown well. Try baking bars longer than called for in your recipe. Realize that most published recipes are not developed using insulated pans. Ideally, only bake one baking pan of bar cookies at a time, placing it on a rack in the middle of the oven.

Re-baking will give us hard, brick-like cookies and bars. The other concern is the eggs. If the bars are so underbaked that the eggs are still raw, it's probably not a good idea to eat or even try to re-bake them if the bars have been sitting out for very long.

For a 13×9 Pan:

On the long side of the pan, make a mark and cut down every 2 1/10-inches, so you have 6 columns. Turn the pan to its shorter side and make one cut down the middle, 4 ½-inches from the edge. You'll end up with 12 2 1/10×4 ½-inch rectangles.

For cake-like bars, test with a wooden pick inserted at the center of the pan. If it comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it, the cookies are done. Chewy (moister) bars will have a dull, rather than shiny, surface; a slight imprint will remain after touching the surface lightly with your fingertip.

To protect flavor and prevent the cookies from drying out, wrap tightly in heavy duty aluminum foil or freezer wrap, or pack in freezer bags or plastic freezer containers with tight-fitting lids. Separate bars with waxed paper between the layers. Remove as much air as possible and seal tightly.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly.

The bottom of your cookies can burn for a variety of reasons. Your oven is too hot. The cookies baked for too long. Even the color of your baking sheet affects the bottoms of your cookies.

Chocolate chip cookies

What is the most popular type of cookie? It might just be this one. Ever the crowd-pleaser, the chocolate chip cookie is renowned for its balance of richness and sweetness.

What is the difference between a cookie and a bar cookie? ›

In many ways, bar cookies are the easiest and quickest way to make cookies. With bar cookies all ingredients and dough is layered and pressed into a pan or baking dish. The pan is then baked and cut into individual servings such as lemon bars, peanut butter bars or cookie pizzas.

“Drop cookie” is a term applied to cookie recipes where bakers “drop” cookie dough from a spoon or cookie scoop onto a baking sheet, rather than roll it out or cut it into specific shapes.

As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. More than that, and you won't see a noticeable difference in the final product. Once the dough has chilled, let it warm up at room temperature until it's just pliable (about 5 to 10 minutes).

We do not recommend baking our Bite-Sized Edible Cookie Dough [flavor/products]. It does not contain eggs or leavening agents, which are key ingredients in developing texture and lift in baked cookies. (If needed) Exposure to high oven temperatures will cause the product to liquefy and possibly burn.

But one unexpected error bakers can make is adding too much of a good thing, butter. Although butter generally makes it all better, bakers who go overboard with it are dooming their cookies to a greasy and crumbly texture.

While stainless steel is a preferred material for many cookware pieces, it's widely known to be a poor performer in the baking sheet category because it's not as good at conducting heat as aluminum.

Baking Pans for Bars

Those include an 8" x 8" x 2" baking pan, a 13" x 9" baking pan, or a 14" x 10" jellyroll pan, depending on what the recipe specifies. (Learn more about baking pans and how to choose one.)

– but metal does an overall better job than glass of baking almost everything except for acidic desserts. It bakes evenly because it heats up so quickly. It also browns beautifully and crisps to perfection.

That is actually my first tip. I use a glass pan (like this Pyrex Baking Dish ) instead of a metal one, because I always found the edges would get to brown in the metal pan. That would also cause all the bars along the edge to stick. The glass pan doesn't over do the edges and they don't stick nearly as much.