High Altitude Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Bars
These moist and chewy oatmeal cookie bars are loaded with chocolate chips and finished with a sprinkling of flaky salt.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Electric Mixer (Stand or Hand-Held)
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- ⅔ cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 1 cup old-fashioned oats
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 ½ cups chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F.Line an 8 1/2 x 11 inch baking pan (or a 9 inch square baking pan) with a piece of parchment/baking paper and snip the corners so the paper fits down into the pan. Alternatively, you can use aluminum foil, and spray the foil thoroughly with non-stick spray.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or using a bowl and hand-held electric mixer), beat the softened butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add the vanilla extract and eggs and mix just until combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture and the chocolate chips (reserving 1/4 cup of the chocolate chips to sprinkle on top) to the dough, and mix on low, just until moistened. The dough will be very thick.
- Pile the dough into the prepared pan. Since the dough is so thick and sticky, it can be a little tricky to spread it out. The best way is to butter your hands or a spatula and just push the dough out to the edges of the pan as evenly as you can. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.
- Bake the cookie bars on the center oven rack for about 25-30 minutes, just until the edges are set and browned, but the center still looks a little underdone. Be careful not to over-bake these bars, or they will end up dry. They will continue to bake and set in the hot pan after you take them out of the oven. It's normal for the center of the bars to settle and sink down a little as it cools.
- Let the bars cool completely, about 3-4 hours, before cutting.
Notes
Note: I used an 8 1/2 x 11 inch baking dish for these bars. If you don't have this size, use a 9 inch square baking dish instead. The bake time should be about the same, or 1-2 minutes longer, since the bars will be slightly thicker. For more bars that are slightly thinner, you can bake them in a 9x13 pan for 25 minutes.
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