Chocolate Peppermint Bar Cookies

Decadent. Christmasy. Easy.

This recipe for Chocolate Peppermint Bar Cookies from the December 2006 issue of Gourmet magazine produced chocolate covered smiles all round. These rich and gooey holiday goodies are packed with chocolate chips, crushed peppermint candies, sugar, butter and cocoa (I used Scharffen Berger), with just a little flour to hold them together.

They were also very quick and easy to make. Chopping the peppermint candies was the most time consuming part. They were so good, I licked the bowl.

Chocolate Peppermint Bar Cookies (adapted from Gourmet: Dec. 2006):
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup hard peppermint candies, coarsely chopped/crushed (I chopped them with a heavy knife)

Preheat the oven to 375.

Beat together the butter and sugar at high speed for 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat 2 minutes. Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt until well combined. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and blend until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and chopped/crushed peppermint candies by hand.

Line a 13 by 9 inch baking pan with foil. Butter the foil. Spread the dough in an even layer to cover the bottom of the pan. Bake for about 20 minutes. The mixture will be puffed up and pull away from the side of the pan. Cool in the pan. Remove from pan in foil and cut into bars using a spatula.