Chocolate Chip Bars

Do you have a go-to baking recipe? That is, a recipe that you make over and over and over again because, well, why reinvent the wheel? I'm talking about the kind of recipe that's tried and true, whose page in the cookbook is dog-eared and splattered with various ingredients. The kind of recipe whose ingredients you always have on hand, and you probably know by heart. The kind that is so delicious you can convince yourself that calories don't exist JUST to have a second (or third) serving while you're cleaning up the kitchen late at night.

Well, friends, that recipe for me is for these chocolate chip bars. I've been making them since I was in high school, and I've never met someone who didn't like them (or else I know some really good liars). They're awesome right out of the oven, and they are also just as scrumptious three days later as a pre-dinner snack when they've been sitting on the counter in a tupperware container TAUNTING you while you cleaned the kitchen. I mean, WHAT? Who? Ahem.

I find them to be the perfect combination of the chocolate chip cookie (in taste) and the brownie (in form); they're basically the greatest thing ever, and well, you just have to trust me, because they are awesome, and you should probably go make them right now.  For dinner.

Chocolate Chip Bars (from Words Worth Eating, a cookbook that I've had for one million years.  Or so.  Also, SPOILER ALERT: these are not very healthy.  BUT!  They are delicious.)
1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease a 9x13 baking pan.
• Melt butter in a 2 qt. saucepan over low heat.  Remove from heat and add brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla; mix well.
• In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
• Add flour mixture to brown sugar mixture; stir well and spoon into pan.
• Spread batter evenly and sprinkle with chocolate chips.
• Bake 35-40 minutes.  Do not overbake.  Cut into bars while warm.
• Yield: 18-24 bars.

My Very Important Notes

• I make this recipe in one bowl: the saucepan that I use to melt the butter.  When I mix the dry ingredients, I do it IN the saucepan on top of the butter/brown sugar mixture.  I pour in the flour first and, after adding the baking powder, soda, and salt, mix the dry ingredients together with a fork, and then incorporate them into the brown sugar/butter mixture.  This is probably Very Wrong of me, but y'all.  I don't have a dishwasher and mixing bowls take up WAY too much room in my drying rack for me to justify dirtying a bowl here.  Also, I am lazy.
• I like my baked goods slightly underdone, so I always take my bars out RIGHT at 35 minutes.  But my oven is old and cranky, so if your oven is new and fancy (or even just old and less cranky than mine), they might need a little more time or a little less.  
• My cup of chocolate chips is always heaping - probably closer to 1.25 cups.
• Once baked and cut into bars, these freeze really well.
• The chocolate chips in my photos look melty because, well, they are.  My kitchen is one thousand degrees and it is August.  What can I say?