Sugar Cookie Bars (aka Thickest, Softest, most Perfect Cookie Bars Ever)

We have never taken so many beauty shots of a single food item. Ever. These Sugar Cookie Bars are as OUTSTANDING as they are photogenic. If you’ve been on the hunt for a bar that’s not dry and has a fudge-like texture and isn’t sickly-sweet, hunt no more. As you might be aware, sugar cookies are awesome. Our Aunt Becky makes the best sugar cookies known to mankind (we used her frosting recipe here). HOWEVER, sometimes you don’t have time for all of that cutting-out-into-shapes, flour-all-over-your-kitchen mess but you still want to sink your teeth into a soft, wonderful sugar cookie. And – if we’re being honest here – we might never go back to making normal sugar cookies again (don’t tell Aunt Becky). These are THAT amazing. There is a just a touch of both lemon zest and almond extract in the dough, which lends a beautiful flavor and some brightness. Those flavors may be contradicting each other in your brain right now, but we assure you – they work wonderfully well here. A touch of lemon zest and some cream cheese in the frosting rounds everything out and results in pure, sugar cookie bliss. Many, many thanks to Baker Bettie for this amazing recipe (see our frosting recipe below).

Here’s the dough:

If you are doubling this recipe, we suggest using two 8×8 inch pans (as opposed to one large pan) as you are less likely to achieve that evenly moist, fudge-like texture when using a large pan. The directions say to bake for 14-16 minutes. They will look underdone when you remove them from the oven, and they should be underdone. Don’t worry, they will firm up if you allow them to cool entirely in the pan before trying to remove them. We’ve baked ours for both 16 minutes and 14 minutes, and both were great but removing them at the 14 minute mark resulted in an even softer texture. Some cookie bars have a greasy feel when they are “underdone,” but this is not the case with these. They will be ultra soft but not greasy. Unless your oven’s heat calibration is way off (or you live at the top of the Rockies), your bars should’t be in the oven for longer than 16 minutes. Be sure to remove them from the oven to check for doneness as your oven light may play tricks on you.

We dropped globs of the same color frosting in a row, then smoothed each row separately using an off-set spatula. The soft frosting allowed the colors to fade into one another naturally.