If you’re looking for an easy, delicious and cute Halloween bake, Brown Butter Monster Cookie Bars are perfect for you. These spooky bars are crisp and golden on the outside, buttery, soft and chewy on the inside. They’re loaded with milk chocolate M & M’s and semisweet chocolate pieces which makes these the best Halloween cookie bars ever! I used a chocolate bar broken into pieces, rather than chocolate chips because the chocolate pieces melt into generous, silky pools of chocolate. The fun part is adding the spooky candy eyes. You can even create expressions with sprinkle eyebrows.
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bars
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- 3/4 cup (170g) unsalted butter, cubed
- 1 1/2 cups (191g) all purpose flour, sifted
- 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup (200g) packed brown sugar
- 1/3 cup (66g) granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 3/4 cup (149g) M & M's milk chocolate candies preferably Halloween colors
- 1 4 oz (113g) semisweet or dark chocolate bar broken into bite size pieces
- Candy eyes
- Green sprinkles
Ingredients
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- In a medium-size light-colored saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and cook until it's deep golden and fragrant. When brown specks start to appear, remove it from the heat and immediately transfer the butter with the brown specks to a large bowl. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Line an 8-inch square baking pan*** with parchment paper, leaving a couple of inches of overhang.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium-size bowl until well combined. Set aside.
- Add the brown sugar, granulated sugar and vanilla extract to the cooled brown butter and stir until combined. Add the egg and egg yolk and stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes, until smooth and well combined. Stir in the flour mixture just until combined. Set aside a few of the larger chocolate pieces for the top. Gently fold the remaining chocolate pieces and the M & M's into the dough.
- Transfer the dough to the baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Arrange the reserved chocolate pieces on the top. Bake until the top is set and light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the bars comes out with a few moist crumbs on it, about 20-25 minutes. Add the candy eyes and sprinkles while the bars are still warm. Let the bars cool in the pan.
*To find candy eyes, click here.
**To find green sprinkles, click here. Alternately, if you have rainbow sprinkles, you can take the  green ones out to use for your cookies bars if you don't want to purchase green sprinkles.
***To find the 8-inch baking pan I used, click here.