Peppermint Patty Stuffed Cookie Bars

Happy Belated Thanksgiving. I’m sure you were wondering … hey, Salted Cookie lady … where were all of the Thanksgiving baked goods posts? Well, if we’re being honest here … I was too tired come Thanksgiving to do any extravagant baking. Also, my parents now live in a condo with one oven, so the only thing going in there on Thanksgiving day is a turkey. That being said, I did use a William Sonoma gluten free apple pie crust mix to make my mom one delicious GF Apple pie.

On Thanksgiving my godmother gave me some bags of candy, including a bag of York Peppermint Patties. Now, if we know one thing for sure, it’s that I have no self control when it comes to having candy around. So on Saturday when I was packing and trying to resist the peppermint patties … and failing … so I needed to put them in a cookie stat. I wasn’t sure how they would hold up in my regular blondie recipe since the insides are a little melty ….. so I made this variation with the patties on the inside.

Ingredients:

•  2 sticks of butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups (or a 12 ounce bag) chocolate chips
• 12 ounce bag of York Peppermint Patties (frozen)

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars. Add in vanilla and eggs and mix well.

Step 2: Add in dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated. Add in chocolate chips and mix well.

Step 3: Grease an 8×8 glass baking dish generously with non-stick spray. Take half of the cookie mixture and press it down into the bottom of the the dish.

Step 4: Evenly place the frozen peppermint patties over the cookie dough. I have gotten into the habit of freezing my candy any time I am going to bake with it. It just seems to work better for some reason, but if you got to this step in the recipe and you didn’t freeze them, don’t worry about it. You might also be asking yourself at this step … why does my bag have more peppermint patties in it than this picture? Because I ate them. That’s why they are missing.

Step 5: Take the other half of cookie dough and cover the peppermint patties evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

You really need to let these cool for at least an hour before cutting into them. I’m not a huge Peppermint Patty fan but these are really good. If you’re eating them the next day, definitely pop them in the microwave for about 10 seconds first. Not more than that, because if you put a peppermint patty in the microwave for more than that, it explodes. That’s not an issue for me anymore since I donated that microwave to Goodwill today. Because this is what my kitchen looks like right now:

Next week’s blog post will be coming to you from my new kitchen. Exciting!!

If you’re looking for the other cookie recipe I posted pics of to my Facebook today, that recipe will be coming December 12! It will be part of the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, so I can’t post it just yet.

Finally to wrap up the post … here is what Harry looked like on Thanksgiving night after too much excitement (Harry doesnt eat Turkey).