One of the first recipes I ever wrote for a cooking column, including for this series, was my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
When I made the cookies for my German family when I was an au pair, I wanted them to be flabbergasted, as they had never encountered anything like this cookie before.
Recently, my baker friend Olivia brought something very similar to a party: an oatmeal, chocolate chip, date cookie bar.
I didn’t even realize the cookie bars, which have the quintessential oatmeal chocolate cookie taste, had dates in them until it was pointed out to me and then, I could really taste them when I was looking for that undertone.
These bars are everything you want in a cookie, except, they’re in a bar. They’re soft and tender and chewy, they have that big chocolate melted flavor and most importantly, they taste like an oatmeal cookie — my personal favorite.
The recipe comes from Sarah Fennel’s book “Sweet Tooth,” where she describes the dates in the bar giving them “a little extra grown-up oomph” to the comforting taste of oatmeal.
This recipe involves seven dates, coarsely chopped, and six ounces of dark chocolate, coarsely chopped, but you can also use chocolate chips.
Everything else is what you would expect out of a cookie: butter, sugar, brown sugar, flour, oats and cinnamon.
These bake in a 8”x8” square baking pan, lined with parchment paper.
Oatmeal,
chocolate and date cookie bars
Ingredients
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ light brown sugar
1 egg (room temperature)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 ounces bittersweet or dark chocolate, coarsely chopped, or 6 ounces chocolate chips
7 dates, pitted and coarsely chopped, about ½ cup
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 8”x8” square baking pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, mix the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until well combined.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until smooth and combined.
Add the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon to the bowl and beat on low until combined.
Mix in the dates and chocolate with a spatula until well combined.
Spread the batter evenly into the parchment-paper-lined pan.
Bake until golden brown and the edges set, 20 to 25 minutes.
Remove the bars from the oven and put on a cooking rack and allow bars to cool in the pan.
When cool, lift out of the bars, by the parchment paper, and cut into squares on a cutting surface.
Recipe from Sweet Tooth by Sarah Fenne