15 brownie and bar recipes for sweet, simple baking
Desserts that raise the bar.
If you're looking for a simple bake that delivers a big bang for your buck, turn to bars. They're typically straightforward in execution and low on ingredients — often they call for just one bowl and limited prep time. To help you find the bar of your dreams — or simply your next best bake — we've pulled some of our favorite brownie and bar recipes. We’ve got gooey s'more bars, buttery blondies, cocktail-inspired mashups, and plenty more. Let's go!
1) Oatmeal Cream Pie Bars
Like the classic sandwich cookies that inspired this dessert, these soft and chewy cinnamon-spiced oatmeal bars are topped with swooshes of fluffy, marshmallow-y icing. They’re the perfect candidate for bake sales and birthday parties; just add sprinkles.
Get the recipe: Oatmeal Cream Pie Bars
Shop the recipe: Vietnamese Cinnamon and Ginger
2) Quick and Easy Fudge Brownies
These one-bowl brownies are one of the most popular recipes on our site. Why? They deliver reliably thick, fudgy brownies and require only a handful of ingredients and one bowl. You’ll have warm brownies straight out of the oven in just about a half hour, start to finish.
Get the recipe: Quick and Easy Fudge Brownies
Shop the recipe: Triple Cocoa Blend and Espresso Powder
3) Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Rather than scooping individual chocolate chip cookies one by one, press the dough directly into a pan for dense, chewy bars that straddle the line between cookie and blondie. These bars get their shiny, crackly top from a favorite trick of ours: combining sugar with hot melted butter until it partially dissolves, yielding a thin, shattering surface when baked.
Get the recipe: Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Shop the recipe: Callebaut Semisweet Chocolate Chips
4) S’more Granola Bars
One of the easiest recipes on our site (find the other 17 easiest recipes here!), these melty, gooey granola bars use the same oat-based mixture for both their bottom crust and crumbly topping. Finished off with a layer of melty chocolate and broiled marshmallows, these treats are peak campfire nostalgia.
Get the recipe: S’more Granola Bars
Shop the recipe: Rolled Oats
5) Chocolate Magic Cookie Bars
Magic cookie bars get a chocolate makeover! Also known as seven-layer bars, dream bars, or Hello Dolly bars, this updated version of the classic gets a touch of cocoa powder and chocolate chips, all sandwiched between a graham cracker crust and a crunchy coconut topping.
Get the recipe: Chocolate Magic Cookie Bars
Shop the recipe: Triple Cocoa Blend and Guittard Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
6) Easy Pecan Pie Bars
This recipe takes everything you love about pecan pie — the gooey filling, toasted nuts, and buttery crust — and packs it into a sweet, sliceable bar. It’s also much more approachable than a full pie: There’s no rolling, chilling, or prebaking pie crust. A total win!
Get the recipe: Easy Pecan Pie Bars
Shop the recipe: 9" x 13" pan
7) Loaded Chocolate Chip Blondies
Think of these blondies as a blank slate for any mix-ins you want to add, from chocolate chips (white, milk, bittersweet, all three?!) to chopped nuts to bits of crunchy toffee. Because they’re baked in a 9" x 13" pan, these bars are also excellent for feeding a crowd.
Get the recipe: Loaded Chocolate Chip Blondies
Shop the recipe: Golden Wheat Flour
8) Peanut Butter Brownies
Made with just a handful of ingredients, these nutty brownies come together in under an hour. The result is a whimsical brownie packed with peanut butter, which comes in three forms: It’s mixed into the batter; it’s swirled on top; and it’s present in the form of chips, which stud every bite.
Get the recipe: Peanut Butter Brownies
Shop the recipe: Triple Cocoa Blend
9) Bourbon Barrel-Aged Blondies
Adding a splash of bourbon barrel-aged beer to these buttery blondies provides an oaky, malty layer of flavor to undercut their inherent sweetness. Like most bars and blondies, these are simple and straightforward to make, and rely on melted butter for a dense, chewy texture.
Get the recipe: Bourbon Barrel-Aged Blondies
Shop the recipe: 8" Square Pan
10) Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies
These moist, decadent cheesecake brownies are for chocolate and cheesecake lovers alike. Each bite provides an intensely rich combination of sweetened cream cheese and deep-dark chocolate — the perfect treat for anyone who can’t choose just one dessert.
Get the recipe: Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies
Shop the recipe: Triple Cocoa Blend and Guittard Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
11) Tahini Chocolate Bars
With their rich tahini and chocolate ganache layers, these bite-sized, no-bake bars pack a flavorful punch. Graham cracker crumbs add crunch, while honey nicely complements the bars' buttery sesame flavor.
Get the recipe: Tahini Chocolate Bars
Shop the recipe: Guittard Semisweet Chocolate Wafers
12) Dark and Stormy Ginger Bars
These frosted bar cookies are flavored with ginger, lime, and rum, evoking the cocktail from which they derive their name. Spicy ginger shows up in four ways — fresh, ground, candied, and in the form of syrup (buy ginger syrup or make it yourself) — while the cream cheese frosting brings the lime and the rum.
Get the recipe: Dark and Stormy Ginger Bars
Shop the recipe: Ginger People Organic Ginger Syrup
13) Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Bars
Good things come in threes — just look at this recipe. The combination of silky chocolate ganache, creamy caramel, and buttery shortbread results in a bar even better than the sum of those (very delicious) parts. The slight bitterness of the dark chocolate cuts the cloying sweetness of the caramel, while the cookie base provides welcome crunch to the soft and creamy layers above.
Get the recipe: Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Bars
Shop the recipe: Guittard Bittersweet Onyx Chocolate Wafers
14) Gooey Vanilla Butter Cake Bars
Some of our favorite bars on this list were inspired by other desserts, and this recipe fits in nicely with that theme: It takes beloved regional staple St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake and transforms it into handheld bars that are part cake, part cookie. These are meant for anyone who always skips the corner piece in favor of the soft, gooey center.
Get the recipe: Gooey Vanilla Butter Cake Bars
Shop the recipe: Nielsen Massey Vanilla Bean Paste and Snow White Non-Melting Topping Sugar
15) Super Fudgy Sourdough Brownies
You don’t need flour to make these gooey, sticky brownies. Instead, a 1/2 cup of sourdough discard provides body, plus that delightful texture. Helpfully, these brownies are as easy as they are decadent, with the batter coming together in a single saucepan.
Get the recipe: Super Fudgy Sourdough Brownies
Shop the recipe: Triple Cocoa Blend
Cover photo by Danielle Sykes; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.
