Chocolate Pecan Cookie Bars
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I’ve been wanting to make some healthy changes for a long time. Last year all healthy goals went out the window when I found out I was pregnant with twins. I was so sick that I didn’t even care about eating healthy. Now that the babies are here and healthy and everything is mostly back to normal I’m ready to make some healthy changes . . . except that I’m so sleep deprived that I keep turning to sugar to get through the day.
So it’s the start of a new year and it’s the perfect time for all these healthy resolutions that everyone is making and I’m over here like “give me ALL the cookies!”.
My diet has success written all over it, don’t you think?
In my defense, you can’t get much better than these ooey gooey Chocolate Pecan Cookie Bars. With a brown sugar oatmeal crust and filled with chocolate, pecans, and your choice of sweetened condensed milk or caramel filling, these have everything I love in a desert.
I’ve had this recipe floating around in my mess of a cookbook for years but it’s one of those forgotten gems that I was excited to rediscover this holiday season. I’m almost embarrassed to admit how much butter I’ve gone through lately while I worked on perfecting these. I’m playing the nursing mom card. I’m nursing twins and I’m taking full advantage of all those extra calories I’m supposed to eat. Although, I suppose they didn’t need to all come in butter form.
Ingredients
- 1 cup plus 3 T flour
- 1 cup oatmeal
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- ¼ t salt
- ½ t baking soda
- ¾ cup butter, softened
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- ¾ cup sweetened condensed milk or caramel
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Combine the oats, 1 cup of the flour, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, and butter. Blend slowly to form loose crumbs.
- Press ¾ of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of a 9.5 x 11 inch pan to form a crust.
- Bake for 8 minutes.
- Combine the caramel or sweetened condensed milk with 3 T of flour.
- Remove from the oven and sprinkle the crust with chocolate chips, pecans and caramel mixture. Lightly top with the remaining oatmeal mixture and bake for 15 minutes.
- Cook then cut into bars
