These definitely look like something I'll be making soon! So many recipes, so little time....! I had a thought while looking over step 2 of this recipe: my all-time favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe comes from America's Test Kitchen. It uses a unique method that's pretty neat. (It might make a difference in other recipes, too, for those who like to experiment.) The ATK recipe instructs to melt and brown most of the measured butter in a 10" skillet (NOT non-stick so you can see the color change) till it's just golden, take it off heat and add the remaining amount of cold butter to cool it down (in your recipe, probably about 6 tbl of the butter browned, then add the remaining unmelted butter in to cool it down), add it to the brown sugar and egg mixture, and then stir it up every 3 minutes or so over a 10-minute period to let it "cure" before adding the dry ingredients. By doing this, the brown sugar gradually dissolves into the melted butter to give it an extra-nutty-caramel-y flavor and texture. I'm sure this could be done with this recipe, too. What do you think? The cookies are THE best choc-chip ones I've ever had (no offense to KAF's recipe), so I can imagine this might give your bars even more to rave about! Not that you want any more raving, now, would you? :-D I think that would work just fine, Linda. Browned butter adds delicious nutty flavor of its own; and I'm sure the cooks at Cook's tried this a million times till they got it just right. Also, dissolving the sugar is what gives bars that shiny top crust. It'd say it's a win-win! PJH

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