Cocoa Cookie Slabs
Dense chocolate bars with crushed sandwich cookies baked in, cut and packed for the trail.
- calories
- 340
- weight
- 2.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 155
- protein
- 4 g
- serves
- 9, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Snack
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Day hike
- Bikepacking
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 1 1/4 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Unsweetened cocoa powder | 1/3 cup | |
| Baking soda | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Butter | 1/2 cup | softened, used at home only |
| Light brown sugar | 1/2 cup | |
| Granulated sugar | 1/4 cup | |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp | |
| Egg | 1 large | |
| White chocolate chips | 1/2 cup | |
| Sandwich chocolate cookies | 6, chopped | Oreos or any store brand |
Method
- At home: heat the oven to 350°F and line an 8x8 pan with parchment.
- Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together in a small bowl.
- Beat the butter with both sugars for about three minutes, until it lightens. Add the egg and vanilla and beat again.
- Add the dry mix and stir only until no flour shows. Overworking it makes the bars tough.
- Fold in the chopped cookies and white chips, then press the dough flat into the pan. It will be stiff.
- Bake 18 to 25 minutes. Pull it when a toothpick comes out with crumbs, not batter. Overbaked bars go dry in the pack.
- Cool completely in the pan, then cut nine squares. Wrap each one before it goes anywhere near your food bag.
- In camp: unwrap and eat. No stove involved.
This is a home-oven bake that travels, not a camp recipe. The dough is stiff enough to press rather than scoop, which means one pan and one bake instead of tray after tray of cookies. The cookies stirred in stay crunchy at the edges and go soft where the dough surrounds them.
The part that matters for the trail is the bake time. Pull them early. A bar that is slightly underdone in the middle stays chewy for days in a pack; one baked until fully set becomes a dry brick by day two. Butter and sugar do the preserving work here, so the bars keep at ambient temperature without a cooler. The white chips will soften above about 80°F but they set again overnight.
Packing
Wrap each bar in parchment, then load them flat into a rigid container or a hard-sided lid pocket. Loose in a stuff sack they turn into cocoa gravel. Good for four days out, longer in cold weather. In heat the white chips soften, so keep them out of the sun.
Variations
- Swap half the butter for shortening if the bars will be carried in hot weather. They hold their shape better.
- Skip the white chips and use dried cherries for something less sweet.
- Bake in a 9x13 pan with a doubled recipe and cut smaller squares for a group trip.
https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/oreo-cookie-bars