Cake Batter Pudding Cookie Bars

I love cookies, but sometimes I don’t have the time or patience to shape each one and bake a bunch of different pans full of cookies — enter, the cookie bar! Whoever first thought of making cookie bars should get a medal! They can be put together in no time and are just as delicious as cookies. Just look at these bars…I am wishing I had some left right now to eat. 🙂

These bars were super easy to make and were really moist. I made them for my sister’s birthday last week, and the pan did not last long. I found the recipe on Pinterest (find it here), and I will definitely be putting it into my recipe binder!

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 (3.4 oz) box instant vanilla pudding mix, dry
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond extract
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup yellow cake mix
2 cups bread flour
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/3 cup sprinkles

Instructions:

Combine baking soda, yellow cake mix and bread flour into a small to medium size bowl and set aside.
Cream butter in the bowl of stand mixer.
Add brown sugar and granulated sugar and cream into butter.
Add dry pudding mix and mix until well incorporated.
Add vanilla, almond extract and eggs to the mixture and beat well.
Add flour/cake mix mixture and mix until well incorporated.
Add white chocolate chips and sprinkles and mix just until evenly distributed.
Press dough evenly onto the bottom of a greased 9×13 inch baking pan. Sprinkle and lightly press additional sprinkles over the top if desired.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until top is golden brown.

Simple Tips:

I used sprinkles from Cake and Bake. If you live in the area, I highly suggest checking out their sprinkle / decorating selection. They have really reasonable prices and they have a great variety of colors and themes!
The batter for these cookie bars does get really thick, so thick that even my stand mixer had a tough time mixing it. So, if you have the option between a hand mixer and stand mixer, I would definitely choose the stand mixer. Personally, I love my Kitchen Aid and enjoy using it when I can!