Rocky Road Chocolate Cookie Bars

Halloween week and I have put out the bowl of candy on the porch, as I do every year, though this year the bowl comes with hand sanitizer and a sign that says TAKE ONE, which is a request that children have historically interpreted as TAKE SEVEN, but which I include anyway because optimism about children's self-regulation is a professional requirement for a teacher and I will not abandon it, not even on Halloween, not even in a pandemic.

Ethan was a doctor for Halloween — David's son, dressed as his father, with a toy stethoscope and a white coat that Jennifer made from a pillowcase (the Feldman family repurposes pillowcases for costumes with an efficiency that suggests we should be in the textile business). Sophie was a princess, which I found both adorable and ideologically complicated, but she is four and the ideology will come later and right now the princess dress makes her happy and a four-year-old's happiness is not something I will problematize. Noah, eighteen months, was a pumpkin, because all babies under two are either pumpkins or animals on Halloween, and the Feldman family tends toward pumpkins.

They trick-or-treated in White Plains, not in Oceanside, so I didn't see them in person, but Jennifer sent photos, and I looked at the photos on my phone and showed them to Marvin, who said, "Cute kids," with the generalized approval of a man who appreciates children without necessarily connecting these specific children to himself, and I said, "Those are your grandchildren, Marv," and he said, "Well, they're cute," which is factually accurate and emotionally incomplete but which I will take, because "cute" is an opinion, and opinions require a functioning preference system, and a functioning preference system is evidence of a mind that is still, in some compartment, working.

I made caramel apples — the kind you make by dipping Granny Smiths into a pot of homemade caramel, which is just sugar and butter and cream cooked to the point of transformation, which is a metaphor I will not belabor but which is there, if you want it: everything begins as sugar and heat and becomes, through patience and attention, something richer and darker and more complex. The apples were for the grandchildren, delivered to David's porch. I did not eat one. The apples are for the young. The caramel is for the future. I am in the business of making things for the future.

The caramel apples went to David’s porch and I didn’t eat a single one, which is the right order of things—you make the good stuff for the young and you feel satisfied watching it disappear, even from a distance. But I had chocolate in the pantry and an evening with nowhere to be, and Rocky Road Chocolate Cookie Bars are exactly the kind of thing you make when you need your hands to be doing something generous and your kitchen to smell like it’s celebrating. They keep well. They travel. They are, like most of the things I bake, really an argument that I am still here and still thinking about the people I love.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 24 bars

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup chocolate fudge sauce or hot fudge topping, for drizzling

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and line it with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the long sides so you can lift the bars out cleanly.
Cream the butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla extract and mix until fully combined.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir until just combined—don’t overmix.
Fold in the chocolate chips. Stir in the chocolate chips, then spread the dough evenly into the prepared pan. It will be thick; use damp fingertips or a spatula to press it into an even layer.
Bake the base. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the top looks set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter).
Add the rocky road topping. Remove the pan from the oven. Immediately scatter the miniature marshmallows and chopped nuts evenly over the hot surface. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 5 to 6 minutes more, until the marshmallows are puffed and just beginning to turn golden at the edges.
Drizzle and cool. Remove from the oven and drizzle the chocolate fudge sauce over the top in a loose zigzag pattern. Let the bars cool completely in the pan—at least 1 hour—before lifting out and cutting into squares. They slice cleanest when fully cooled.

Nutrition (per serving)

Rocky Road Chocolate Cookie Bars — Something Sweet for the Grandchildren Who Came in Photos This Year