These are chocolate chip cookie bars that reminded Sherri over at Yum of the chocolate chip bars she used to have in her school cafeteria. Hence the name “Lunch Lady Bars”.
In Australia, when I was in high school, there were no school cafeterias.
Instead, we had canteens, where we lined up to buy awful things like hash browns, sausage rolls, meat pies or chocolate bars for lunch before going and sitting on the ground somewhere to eat them. How civilized.
I always dreamed of having a proper cafeteria at school with tables and chairs, trays, lunch ladies and yummy, fresh food.
But as there was no cafeteria, there were no lunch ladies to bake me chocolate chip bars (I was totally missing out, huh?), so I was curious about this recipe.
I was also curious that it has no butter, but uses vegetable oil instead, and wanted to see how they would turn out.
And they just look so delicious in these photos on Taste and Tell. I had to make them.
These turned out to be the chewiest, softest, gooey-est chocolate chip cookie bars I have ever eaten. The flavour is just a little different, what with the lack of butter, but the texture is great, so soft and chewy. Not a touch of cakeyness or crumbliness in sight.
They actually taste like raw cookie dough. And I love raw cookie dough.
CHOCOLATE CHIP ‘LUNCH LADY’ BARS
Adapted from Taste and Tell.
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 170 C and line a 9 x 13 inch pan with baking paper.
In a large bowl, combine the vegetable oil and both sugars well with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.
Gradually add the flour, baking soda and salt, mixing well to combine. Finally, stir in 3/4 of the chocolate chips.
Spread the dough out in the lined pan and top with the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.
Bake for 18-22 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Allow to cool before cutting. Makes 20 bars.
