4-INGREDIENT CHOCOLATE CHIP BARS
These super easy chocolate chip cookie bars use only four ingredients to come together
Sometimes I have an idea in my head for a recipe, with good intentions to make it. But sometimes a different recipe comes to mind and pushes that one to the back burner.
That’s what happened here.
I needed caramel for the original recipe I wanted to make. After a couple failed attempts at making caramel from scratch (and consciously avoiding a trip to the store), I decided to try something I had read about before: turning sweetened condensed milk into caramel.
It was straight forward: Heat the oven to a temperature of 425 degrees, pour the milk into a cake pan or pie tin, cover it with foil, sit that pan in a bigger pan with about an inch of water up the side, and bake for an hour or so.
This attempt was successful. After an hour, I removed it from the oven, lifted the foil, and discovered the sweetened condensed milk bubbling and that amber caramel color.
But I wasn’t ready to make my recipe yet, because I realized I had overlooked a couple other ingredients. Sigh. So, after letting the caramel cool, I covered it and put it in the fridge.
But I forgot about it until a couple days later. Although I had caramelized this sweetened condensed milk for a specific recipe, I felt somewhat disenchanted with it due to all of the mishaps surrounding it.
I needed a clean slate.
Out of the blue, this recipe came to me. I was just so curious as to what the texture could be if I mixed this caramelized milk with eggs, graham cracker crumbs, and chocolate chips. I didn’t know if it would turn into a souffle, a cookie, a cake, or some kind of complete mess.
What was the result? A surprisingly rich chocolate chip bar cookie. The caramelized sweetened condensed milk seemed to fluidly mimic the usual brown sugar/butter combination of traditional chocolate chip cookies. But there was no creaming of butter or measuring brown sugar involved; just four simple ingredients.
I would actually consider this one of my favorite recipes thus far. Not only is it super fast and easy, but it is super yummy. Consider this recipe next time you are looking for chocolate chip cookies; I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Recipe:
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Ingredients Section:
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk, caramelized (*see notes)
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 2 cups chocolate chips
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray an 8×8 inch square pan with nonstick spray
- On medium-high speed, beat caramelized sweetened condensed milk and eggs until combined and foamy
- Stir in graham cracker crumbs
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Spread evenly into the pan
- Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or close to clean
- Allow to cool completely before cutting
Notes about this recipe:
- To caramelize sweetened condensed milk: Pour milk into a pie or cake pan. Cover it with foil. Place the pan in a larger pan. Fill the larger pan with hot water, about half-way up the side of the pie/cake pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for about an hour. Mixture should be bubbly and caramel colored. If it is still light-colored, return to the oven and check every 10 minutes until it looks like caramel. Immediately transfer to a heat proof bowl. Cool to room temperature before using. Store in refrigerator after it’s cooled if not using it right away
