Tasty Tuesday- M & M Cookie Bars

Let's talk about my current dessert obsession. Cookie bars.
For some reason they remind me of my childhood, which makes no sense really because I can probably count on one hand the number of times my mother made us cookie bars? She baked all the time, but when I was growing up cookie bars were made out of a box mix from the store. Which had basically the same effect as the time I told my mother I really, really knew I was adopted.
And we're not going to go there ever again ya'll.
So I can't really explain why I've been searching high and low for the "best cookie bar" recipe and testing lots of recipes. The Mr. hasn't seemed to mind. So on my quest I stumbled upon this little gem on Pinterest and decided to give it a whirl.

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2 1/8 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 sticks softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
12 oz. bag of M & M's (Give or take however many I ate before I began baking. Do me a favor and pretend you didn't notice the bag was totally open in that picture. Just keepin it real.)

So begin by preheating the oven to 325 and greasing a 9x13 baking dish. Then combine the flour, salt, and baking soda.

In another bowl combine the softened butter, brown sugar and white sugar. I used a hand mixer. While the recipe says to mix until light and fluffy, mine just never got there. Not gonna lie, kind of resembled sand. (You're dying to try this recipe asap now, right??)

But I just kept on going with and hoping for the best. Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix that well also. This time it started coming together quite nicely!!

Now add your dry ingredients and mix until just combined, but don't over mix.

Add in 1 cup of M & M's.

Press these into your prepared dish and try to make it as even as possible. Then sprinkle the rest of the M & M's on top and press down into the top of the dough.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. I like mine super chewy borderline gooey so I took mine out a tad early.

Printable version found here!

Linking up with Jessica, Sarah, Emily, Mandy, Chef in Training, Darlene, and Jacinda.