It’s the most wonderful time of the year…with lots and lots of Christmas cookies! Heck, even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, ’tis the season to stuff your face with party food and sweets, right? I love baking Christmas cookies and thought I’d try to come up with a new Christmas Cookies Bars recipe to share with you all!
I started with this Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip pan cookie recipe and added seasonal M&M’s Christmas Baking Bits and some of those extra cute Nestle Toll House Holiday Morsels
. I substituted Crisco for the butter that the original recipe called for and the result was a sweet, chocolaty, moist cookie bar that is sure to be a hit at your holiday party this year!
This is a pretty simple recipe, and I think it will be perfect for making cookie bars throughout the year.
Just change the chocolate chips for regular ones and you can buy any kind of M&M’s – or omit them altogether and just add extra chocolate chips!
Christmas Cookie Bars Recipe
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup Crisco (or you can use butter)
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips
- 1 cup M&M's baking bits (they're basically mini M&M's)
- Preheat your oven to 375. Spray a 13x9 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray, then cut a piece of parchment paper to fit inside the dish so that the bottom is completely covered. Spray that with cooking spray too.
- Combine the Crisco, vanilla, eggs and sugars and beat until light and creamy.
- Add dry ingredients and beat for one minute, or until a thick dough forms.
- Stir in chocolate chips and M&M's.
- Pour into your baking dish and cook at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
I hope you like these cookie bars as much as I did!
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Oh my gosh, does that look delicious! Jenn, what are you doing to me, stop making me addicted to your blog!
These look so good! My family would love to gobble these up!!
Those festive colors added to the bars really make them irresistible!
If I made that I would too much of it! It looks so good!
Yummy colorful goodness, love the green and red M&M’s in this. Awesome sweet treat for the holiday season.
Yum that looks so rich and tasty.
Yes, those cookies look amazing. I’m going to try this and see how it comes out.
Bar cookies are so under appreciated! All the glamour of cookies with less work. And, these are colorful to boot! They wouldn’t last in our house.
I normally don’t like M&Ms, but that looks so good that I”d eat it without a second thought!
These Christmas Cookies Bars look delicious, I can’t wait to try them, I’ll make them with M&Ms and without. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Look delicious! Love how the use of different colors to make every occasion special!
Definitely a winner recipe to bring along to a social gathering. Kids and adults alike will eat them up fast I bet!
Looks like a keeper to me …perfect for the care packages I will be sending out for Christmas. Thanks!
Have you tried the recipe with milk? Or are they chewy already? This recipe sounds delish!
These look great! my daughter would love to make this…and eat it too!
This looks so yummy! I think it would be good with mint m&m’s!
Those looks super tasty and so festive. Thanks so much for sharing the great recipe.
These look utterly delicious and so festively colorful.
I know my kids would adore these. The red & green make them really festive & fun!
My girls would love to make these. We are always looking for new holiday treats to make.
As much as I love cookies (and that is a lot!), I don’t often make them because all that shaping is just too fussy. I love the idea of cookie bars, which I am always more likely to make, and these look so pretty with the Christmas candies. Thank you for the recipe. I’m adding it to my list for holiday baking.
How festive and yummy! I might just make it this week. Thanks
I love making cookies into bars, much easier.
Love this idea! I would love to have this after school or work.This would also be great for after brunch.
I could so go for one of these bars right now! Yum! We would love to have you share them at our link up party Found & Foraged this Friday at 8PM Central Time (normally it starts on Saturday at 8PM, but this week only it starts on Friday). I hope you can make it over to http://houseofhipsters.com/
Thanks so much, I am going to try to make it! 🙂
Sadly, I agree with the other comment about the greasiness. Just got these out of the oven and they are way too mushy and greasy, definitely inedible. I used butter instead of Crisco, so maybe that’s where it went wrong. They smell great, but didn’t turn out as I hoped 🙁
these look great!
These would so kill my diet but I could always make it for my friend who is addicted to M&M’s lol She would devour these~!
How long will these store & save to have for events during the Christmas & Holiday Season?
I made these tonight and they turned out awful. All the chocolate chips fell to the bottom. I used butter and it is a greasy mess. I did notice that you say to use a 9×13 pan but you show a 9×9 square pan. I used a 9×13 so maybe that’s where I went wrong.
Oh no! I am sorry that it didn’t turn out for you. I showed a 9×9 square pan in my photo, but that is because I used two pans because I made a bigger batch – I made a lot for gifts. I find that butter is more greasy than Crisco but wow, it shouldn’t have been that bad 🙁
I would be interested in making these with Valentine’s Day M&Ms for all three of my children’s classrooms. Such a colorful fun treat.
Ive made 2 batches of these already for Christmas. They are a hit with all the cookies we give to friends and family. And I cant stop eating them!!
I made these at Christmas time and used m&m peanut butter and m&m peppermint chips. They were delicious and a big hit with the family!