Bar Cookies

Perhaps the easiest of all cookies to prepare, bar cookies are really a large cake, divided. The dough or batter is poured into a large pan (all the bar cookie recipes here use a 13 x 9 x 2-inch or a 10 x 15 x 1-inch pan), then spread flat. The baked cake is then cut into bars or squares. Some recipes call for dough used as a base for a topping, yet others have fillings like large rectangular pies or tarts cut into squares.

Perhaps the richest and most elegant bar cookies are brownies, and they are in a special section at the end of this chapter.