Category Archives: blondies

Halloween Candy Cookie Bars

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A couple of good things happened in the past few days:

1. I finally bought Halloween candy. Never mind the fact that I live in an apartment building made up of only grown ups, because – much like my Frankenstorm prep – you can never be too prepared. Never mind the fact that said Halloween candy will certainly not last us until the actual day of Halloween. Never MIND the fact that there are 750 Butterfinger wrappers in my garbage can. Do you even KNOW how I feel about Butterfingers???? I want to hug them with my whole face. CHOMP.

2. MIKE PASSED THE BAR!!! This is very, very good news. We celebrated by getting a fancy drink in a fancy bar and congratulating ourselves on being grown ups and then hit up The Lower Depths and ate 500 $1 hot dogs and drank beer. Grown ups < not grown ups.

3. Frankenstorm cancelled school today!!!! I think this is karma for all the snow days we DIDN’T have last school year. Thank you, Sandy. Even though you have the saddest hurricane name.

4. Mike and I became addicted to Homeland and it is, to date, the only TV show we agree on. It’s also the only thing we’ve done in the past 4 days. IT. IS. SO. GOOD. Thank you, Showtime, for saving my TV-watching relationship.

So, anywho…I bought all this Halloween candy and said to myself, “Self? How can you add 4,000,000 more calories to Halloween?” And myself said, “Chop up your Butterfingers and Snickers and Kit-Kats and put them in a cookie dough blanket.” So I did.

Perhaps my sub-conscious is preparing me for the impending doom of Sad-Sandy? Like a chipmunk collects nuts for the winter, I collect calories in the form of cookie-candy bars for power outages. It’s biology. Delicious, delicious, biology.

Halloween Candy Cookie Bars (basic blondie recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

yield: 16 squares

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
  • 1 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup candy bars, chopped*

*I used my favorite Halloween candies: Butterfingers, Snickers, Kit-Kats and M&Ms, but feel free to add whichever candies are YOUR favorites!

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8×8 pan with cooking spray (for even easier removal, line the pan with parchment paper and then coat with cooking spray).
  2. In a large bowl, whisk the melted butter and brown sugar. Add the egg and vanilla; whisk until smooth. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir with a rubber spatula until mostly combined. Fold in the chopped candy bars.
  3. Spread the batter into prepared pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and the center is just set – it will seem pretty gooey but the bars will firm up as they cool. Cool completely before cutting into squares.