87 cookie bar recipes

Soft-baked bars with apples, cranberries, and nuts baked into orange-scented batter, then frosted with tangy orange cream cheese icing. Perfect for holiday cookie trays.

Chocolate-filled fruit oatmeal bars: a buttery brown-sugar oat crust with a rich melted chocolate, condensed milk, raisin, and coconut filling. Sheet-pan bars for crowds and cookie swaps.

Peanut butter and jelly streusel bars with a brown sugar PB cookie base, strawberry jam middle, and oat-crumble topping. The lunchbox sandwich reinvented for the cookie tray.

Cranapple snack bars with fresh cranberries, sliced apples, walnuts, and silken tofu in a honey-sweetened cinnamon batter. A naturally sweetened fruit bar with no refined sugar.

Peanut butter bars for a crowd yields 8 dozen from three sheet pans. A big-batch recipe with a chewy, dense peanut butter cookie base dusted with powdered sugar.

Lower-fat chewy oatmeal raisin cookies use applesauce and egg whites in place of butter and yolks. Spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, ready in 40 minutes. Drop cookie or 9x13 bar pan option.

Cookie cutter brownies are firm fudgy bars baked flat, chilled, and stamped into hearts, stars, or letters with regular cookie cutters. The foil-sling method makes lifting and shaping clean every time.

Peanut butter cookies loaded with chopped Baby Ruth bars for chunks of caramel, nougat, and roasted peanuts in every bite. Drop, flatten with a fork, bake until golden.

One base cookie dough, four different bar cookies. Choose from Granola Nut, Apricot Cashew, Apple Oatmeal, or Carrot Pineapple. Spread in a jelly roll pan and bake for 35 easy cookie bars.

Chocolate-coconut cookies inspired by Almond Joy candy bars with sweetened condensed milk and whole almond garnish. No-fuss drop cookies ready in 12 minutes.

Nutty apricot bars with a coconut-pecan crumble crust and jammy dried apricot filling. A layered fruit bar that's part cookie, part shortcake, chilled and sliced from the pan.

Buttery spritz cookie bars filled with a date, candied cherry, and nut filling flavored with orange zest. Pressed through a cookie press and cut into bars.

Three-layer chocolate caramel bars with a fudgy brownie base, gooey pecan caramel topping, and a lacy semi-sweet chocolate drizzle. Makes 54 bars that store beautifully for 10 days. Think homemade turtle candy in cookie bar form.

Aplets are a great bar cookie for summertime or school lunch boxes.

Mrs. Fields $250 cookie recipe with ground oatmeal, double chocolate (chips and grated bar), two cups of butter, and chopped nuts. Makes 8 dozen legendary cookies.

Buttery shortbread crust topped with gooey pecan-coconut filling creates bar cookies that taste like pecan pie without the fussy pastry work.