The Bars That Dreams Are Made of

"Erika, what are you doing?"

"I'm baking of course, what does it look like?"

"But it's 96º outside and muggy!"

Such is my devotion to this blog and my readers. And that is how much I truly love these bar cookies. They are worth turning on the oven for on a 96º afternoon.

But before I get to the cookies, a big hi there and hello to all of my local readers from the Seymour area. I'm glad you've dropped in and I hope you'll hang around from time to time to check out what's going on in my kitchen. Feel free to leave feedback at any time, and should you feel like you want to contact me, feel free to do so at tummytreasureATgmailDOTcom. Please poke around and let me know what you think! And for all my non-local readers, this was the week. I arrived home from vacation last night to find myself in the local paper. It was...interesting to say the least. The editor did a great job introducing me, I think, and I'm looking forward to see how the recipes get incorporated in the future. If you want to see the article, I think you can click here- you'll need to scroll down a little, and please let me know if that link doesn't work.

On to the cookies! I have become a recent fan of bar cookies. Normally I seem to reserve them for holidays, but they need so much more attention. They're so easy! Put ingredients in one pan, bake once and when cool, cut into squares. They're usually pretty economical, and the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. This recipe is one I adapted from a recipe I found on Recipezaar. I've had a bit of an addiction to adding mini m&m bits to cookies lately, and I wanted a bar cookie that featured them. I found the perfect one, and set out to make it right away.

First, you make a shaggy cookie dough- flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, coconut,salt, and baking soda are combined and then melted butter is added. Everything is mixed together until combined and the majority of this mixture is pressed into the bottom of a 9x13 pan. This bakes for a while, and while it's baking, sweetened condensed milk is combined with peanut butter for a decadent creamy layer. Once the base is baked, the peanut butter mixture is gently spread on top, followed by chocolate chips, m&m's and the last bit of cookie dough. The hardest part of this cookie is to allow it the time to cool. These cut incredibly better when completely cool, so do what you can to resist cutting into them too soon. M&M Dream Bars have become an instant go-to cookie for me. The link will take you to my adapted recipe.