Deep Dish Oatmeal Cookie Bars

This is one cookie that you can truly sink your teeth into.  The recipe is adapted from Love, Life, Lavins and they are scrumptious!!  I've made these quite a few times in fact.  They don't last long in my house.

They are like chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, but over-sized and in bar form.  And instead of chocolate chips, these are stuffed with chocolate!  A whole layer of melty chocolate right through the center! 

What are you waiting for?  Pour yourself a glass of milk and dig in! 

24 bars

Deep Dish Oatmeal Cookie Bars

2 sticks of butter, room temp
2 eggs
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup milk
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups oatmeal

Chocolate Center
1 can Eagle's brand sweetened condensed milk (her instructions were to not use generic condensed milk for this recipe so I've only ever used this brand!)
1/3 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease the bottom of a 13 x 9-inch pan.  Mix the butter, eggs and brown sugar in a large bowl of a stand mixer.  Add vanilla and milk.  Slowly incorporate the rest of the dry ingredients and mix well (it will be quite thick).

Spread 1/2 of the cookie mixture on the bottom of the pan and bake for about 8-10 minutes - just until barely set.  While baking, melt all the chocolate ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat.

Pull out of oven and pour chocolate mixture over the bottom cookie layer.  Drop the remaining 1/2 of the cookie mixture onto the chocolate layer and spread as best as you can (it's hard to cover completely).  Bake for 25-35 minutes (check at 25 minutes and if not completely cooked, you can put aluminum foil over it for the last 10 minutes so it doesn't get too brown).  Let cool completely so everything has a chance to set.

(Source:  Adapted from Love, Life, Lavins)