Spiced Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
I spent yesterday driving home to Ohio. My friends all think I’m crazy to drive instead of fly but I would rather spend my day in my car with my own music under my control than sit around in an airport full of strangers and overpriced food and booze. Trust me, I’ve done my fair share of drinking in airports and its not a pretty sight.
Interstate 90 is very familiar to me. This is the route my family and I would take every summer to get to Maine and I have come to know it in all seasons and all conditions. I’ve almost wrecked with my dad during a mid-April snow squall in upstate New York and I’ve seen the trees coming back to life when I drove out in May a few years ago.
This year, I will be spending my first Thanksgiving in Ohio since I moved to Maine in 2012. I’ll be back for ten days and will be catching up with family and friends and even teaching a workshop at my sister’s store, The Collective. Most importantly, I’ll be spending plenty of time with my niece and new nephew. It is a trip I’ve been looking forward to for months.
To save myself from the blight of eating fast food all day, I made sure to prepare a cooler full of food for my trip. This included chicken salad croissants, apples, nuts, cheese, and my favorite: spiced chocolate chip cookie bars. After all, diets don’t count when you’re driving for 12 hours alone, right?
These cookie bars are no joke. I love them. Anthony loves them. You’ll love them too. These are the result of a gamble taken in the kitchen a few months ago. I might have had a few cocktails before deciding I wanted something sweet to round out my evening. I’m a big fan of salty-sweet-spicy combos and felt bold. As I was sifting the flour and baking soda, I grabbed a bottle of cinnamon and a bottle cayenne and did my best Emeril impression and BAM. Spiced chocolate chip cookies were born. Truth be told, this first batch was OK but not great. I went a little heavy on the cinnamon and not heavy enough on the cayenne. Fast forward through a few more iterations and a lot of note-taking and a recipe is born.
Spiced Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Ingredients
8 T butter, room temp
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1 egg, room temp
2 t vanilla
1¼ C flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t kosher salt
1/8 t cinnamon
¼ t cayenne
1 C chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and cayenne in a large bowl and sift once.
3. In a stand mixer, beat the butter and both sugars until creamed. It should look light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until well combined.
5. Slowly, add the flour in batches. Mix until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips and pour into a greased pan. Bake 20-25 minutes, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
