I made 3 cookies this Christmas, and I put them in people’s stockings, in Matt’s grandfather’s present, and in a Secret Santa gift I sent out (ironically, to someone in a town we were right near in Connecticut). This was one of the three.

The recipe comes from Cookwoman Food (at least, that’s how I’m parsing it – I might be wrong, but this way makes sense, doesn’t it?), and it’s a lot like a 7-layer bar, except it has fewer layers, and more of them are chocolate. A chocolate base, then chocolate chips, walnuts, and coconut on top. So… a 4-layer bar, and half of the layers are chocolate. P.S., the chocolate base has chocolate chips in it, too. Does that count as a layer? Does that bump us up to 5 layers, and more than half of the layers being chocolate? 7-layer bars are always kind of sketchy with their definition of a layer, anyway, so you might as well count this in.

Chocolate Coconut Bars

Ingredients

for the base
1 1/8 cups flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup dark chocolate chips

for the topping
2 eggs
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Method

for the base
Preheat the oven to 350.
Combine all the base ingredients together.
Press into a baking pan; I used my 8 1/2×11 pan, but the original recipe, and normal people, used a 9×13.
Bake for 10 minutes, but leave the oven on when it’s done.
While it’s baking, make the topping, by which I mean mix together all the topping ingredients.
Spread the topping on the baked base layer.
Chuck it back in the oven for another 20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Don’t be fooled if your knife goes through a chocolate chip and comes out gooey from that!