Cookies and Cream Bars

Hello friends, it's been awhile. I took a little unplanned three month sabbatical while exploring my new city. I wish I could say I've got a beautifully decorated home and a ton of new recipes ready...but I don't. Instead, I've been drinking a lot of local beer, eating some really amazing food, and seeing some beautiful places. San Antonio had a handful of gems but this city is FULL of them. Now that the weather has cooled off I can turn on the oven without making the entire house unbearably hot. The change in the weather is making me crave all the fall things and I can't wait to get back in the kitchen.

When I saw Trader Joe's new cookies and cream cookie butter I had no doubt that it would be as good as it's speculoos counterpart. Trashing up some bars with it was my first thought and these guys are the result. They have a fudgy brownie-like bottom and gooeyness on top. You can also enjoy the cookie butter on it's own with your choice of dippers. This new cookies and cream flavor got me thinking about making my own homemade cookie butter, which I'm going to have to try out next. Try my Chocolate Cookie Butter Bars if you love the original speculoos flavor. 

Cookies and Cream Bars

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup Trader Joe’s Cookies and Cream Cookie Butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips
12 Trader Joe's Joe- Joe's, crushed

1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 13x9 baking pan with foil and spray with non stick cooking spray.

2.  In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.

3.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using a large bowl with a hand mixer) cream together butter, granulated and brown sugar, until light and fluffy, then beat in cookie butter.

4.  With the mixer on low beat in the egg and then the vanilla.

5.  Then gradually add in the flour mixture until just combined.

6.  Turn the dough out into prepared pan and smooth out with a spatula, bottom of the measuring cup, or your hands, whatever works.

7.  Drop a few teaspoons of the cookie butter over the dough, as little or as much as you'd like. I used about 7 teaspoons.

8.  Sprinkle the chocolate chips and crushed Joe-Joe's over the dough, and drizzle the sweetened condensed over the top.

9.  Bake in preheated oven for 26-32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. You don't want to over-bake these. Then let cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before lifting out of pan and cutting.