November 24, 2017
Christmas Cookie Bars!
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Christmas chocolatey and cinnamon delicious Christmas cookie bars!
Christmas cookie bars
So, I won’t lie.. this is a DELICIOUS cookie bar recipe, that I am just going to go ahead and call it Christmas themed. There aren’t that many alterations from my other cookie bar recipes like my Oreo Cookie Bars and my Mini Egg Cookie Bars if I am completely honest.
Spice
However, the addition of cinnamon into these delicious beauties, along with some themed colours of red & green, I think they’re suitably Christmas themed. You can of course leave the cinnamon out if you preferred or swap it for something such as nutmeg or ginger which would also be delicious!
Festive colours
The red & green colours make anything Christmas themed for me, and I just love it. The colours remind me of holly leaves and berries like on the top of my Christmas pudding chocolate truffles or my Christmas pudding cookies and I just think its adorable.
As I made these a little while ago before this post has gone live, I picked through some packets of M&Ms to get the colours out, and then used the brown ones as well as they’re just chocolate coloured. This might be faffy, but if you’re going for a theme like me then its worth it!
Recipe adaptations
You can adapt this recipe so easily to be ginger flavoured instead of cinnamon, or even nutmeg flavoured. If you want to make it into a a chocolate type cookie bar, you simple need to use 200g of plain flour, and 50g of cocoa powder in place of the 275g of plain flour in this recipe.
Luckily, everything else will stay the same. For a recipe without cocoa powder like this one, I find you always need a tad more ‘dry ingredients’ as cocoa powder is naturally quite drying, so in this you use 25g more plain flour then the total dry ingredients in the chocolate version.
Themed bakes
I am completely and utterly Christmas OBSESSED and I am not ashamed. If you’re after an easy Christmas traybake then this is the one for you, or even my Christmas tree brownies.
If you’re after something else thats cinnamon themed, then try my baked cinnamon doughnuts that I posted recently. Either way, I have many a Christmas themed treat for you, and this one is definitely up there with one of my favourites. Enjoy! x
Christmas Cookie Bars!
Ingredients
- 275 g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp cornflour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 115 g unsalted butter
- 55 g granulated sugar
- 135 g light brown sugar
- 1 medium egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200 g red/green/brown M&Ms
- 150 g milk chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 190C/170C fan and line a 9x9inch square tin with parchment paper, and leave to the side for now.
- Whisk/Mix the plain flour, bicarbonate, salt, cornflour and cinnamon together so its evenly distributed – leave to the side.
- In a larger bowl, melt the butter. Add in the two sugars, and whisk for about 2 minutes so the sugar starts to dissolve and the mixture is smooth. Add in the egg and the vanilla, and whisk again briefly until smooth. (I used an electric whisk)
- Add in the dry ingredients, all but a handful of the Christmas coloured M&Ms, and the chocolate chips and mix with a spatula until a thick cookie dough is formed.
- Press the mixture into the bottom of the tin and press in the handful of Christmas M&Ms into the top for decoration. Bake the traybake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the top of the cookie bake looks ‘dry’!
- Leave the cookie bake to cool for about 10 minutes, then leave to cool fully on a wire rack. Cut the bake into 4×4 for decent sizes, or 5×5 for smaller ones! Enjoy!
Notes
- You can just use a bag of M&Ms and not bother dividing the colours – but I wanted this to look super Christmas like so I did. I used two of the larger M&M bags to get enough red/green/brown out of it. (I just ate the spare!)
- You can of course use any other chocolatey treat you like in them, or even the dedicated Christmas M&M packets, or even the crispy or peanut M&Ms!
- These delicious beings will last in an airtight container for up to 5 days, but honestly, they’ll be eaten before then.
- Try microwaving them when they’ve cooled if you want a gooey cookie, or even add a scoop of ice cream!
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J x
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Hi, do you think this recipe would be good to adapt for someone whose a coeliac? If I was to substitute the plain flour for GF flour do you think it would still work?
I’ve just made these for our church Christmas service next week. I haven’t tasted them , but they look and smell delicious. HOWEVER, a friendly warning – red and green Smarties turn orange and yellow in the oven! I probably should have used m&ms as in the recipe but I much prefer Smarties!
Yep, I use M&Ms because they don’t lose their colour x
Would it be ok to leave out the cinnamon?
Do you have to let the butter cook before adding the sugars ! Thank you Jane , love all your recipes
I melted mine completely and they turned out so amazing!
Just made these today, absolutely gorgeous they have gone down a treat!!
Hi! What can I use as a cornflour substitute? Cornstarch or plain flour?
Thank you!
Hiya! Use 25g extract plain flour. Hope this helps! x
Hi Jane,
Do you have any suggestions for making vegan variations of your cookie bars?
Hiya! Follow my vegan cookie recipe! Hope this helps! x
It is amazing
Sounds great! Should I double it for 13x9inch pan or it’ll be too thick please?
can you make these in to cookies ?
Hey, yes – follow the method of the NYC cookies x
Can I make this without the egg? I don’t like using alternative versions to egg.
You would have to use an alternative as the egg is there for a reason – you can use milk like in my vegan cookies, or mashed banana, apple sauce, flaxseed etc.
Hi. Could you use gluten free flour for these or would it change the texture? Looking for a gluten free christmas recipe.
Thanks.
Ps. Love baking with your recipes.. They are amazing, never fail and I get lots of compliments! x
The texture will inevitably change slightly due to the lack of gluten, but they will still be super tasty and lovely gluten free. I would just do a straight swap to a good quality GF flour! X
Can you freeze this before baking like you do the NYC cookies?
Yes you can!
When you have made this, how long does it last if all wrapped and kept airtight? 🙂
I usually say they last up to five days!
Hi, can you double the recipe or is it best to make two separate batches?
Merry Christmas xxx
If you are doubling and baking into two separate 9″ square tins then its fine to double and split x