“These are brilliant! Why hasn’t anyone thought of square cookies before?”
Our old friend Dayalan was impressed. So was Pete – but less by the cookie and more by the application of the engineering directive that if something is tricky and time consuming, find a shortcut.
I’ve baked cookies in slab form before, but they’ve always come out a little gooey and brownie-esque. These ones are proper cookies – they keep well in an airtight container for ages and freeze brilliantly too. I used my half sheet pan from Costco and my tried and trusted chocolate chip cookie dough formula.
The original recipe is quite fiddly to make – the high chocolate to flour ratio (3:2) makes the cookies notoriously prone to spreading, so the dough usually needs a rest in the fridge overnight before shaping. By using a sheet pan, I was able to bake the cookies as soon as the dough was mixed!
Here are the quantities I used – please scale accordingly to suit the size of your baking tray…
- 330g plain flour
- 70g bread or bakers flour
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 240g white sugar
- 200g brown sugar
- 250g unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
- 2 large (59g) eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract (I used homemade)
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted
- 300g semisweet chocolate callets (Callebaut 811, 54% cocoa)
- 100g bittersweet chocolate callets (Callebaut 70% cocoa Sao Thome Origin)
- 200g bake stable dark choc chips (Callebaut 44% cocoa baking sticks, broken into small pieces)
Note : Yes, you did read correctly, there is indeed 600g of chocolate in this recipe. I use all dark in my cookies, but please use any combination you prefer. Try to use the best chocolate you can get your hands on!
1. Preheat oven to 150C (with fan). Line a half sheet pan (18 by 13in or 46 by 33cm) with a large sheet of parchment paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cold butter and sugars together, until they form a grainy paste. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until just combined. Do not overmix.
3. In a separate large bowl, stir together the flour, salt and sifted bicarbonate of soda (it’s important to sift the bicarb, or you’ll get bitter lumps in the finished cookie). Add the chocolate to the flour and stir to combine. Add the whole lot to the batter and mix until just incorporated.
4. Tip the mixture onto the lined sheet pan and spread it out evenly with clean, wet hands. It will feel like you’re working with playdough – you might need to pull off chunks of dough and use them to fill in any gaps. When it’s reasonably well spread out, use an offset spatula to smooth out the top as much as possible.
5. Bake the tray for 20 – 25 minutes until golden brown, rotating once at the halfway point. The shorter baking time will result in a gooey-er cookie. I usually bake them a bit longer as I find they cut and store better that way. The huge amount of chocolate means they still stay pretty tender…
6. Allow the cookies to cool completely in the pan on a wire rack, then remove and carefully slice into squares. I like to wrap each cookie separately – they make less mess that way. This is completely optional, of course – I bought bundles of pre-cut greaseproof paper ($2/1000 sheets) from the clearance pallet at Southern Cross Supplies, so I use those…
I usually end up with 48 cookies per tray – half go into an airtight container for immediate consumption, and the rest are either given away or tucked into the freezer for a cookie emergency (they defrost perfectly).
My three men adore these! And I love that their favourite chocolate chip cookies are now so easy to make!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
What a brilliant idea! Much easier and faster than making sheets and sheets of round cookies. ☺
I like it
You are a cookie genius! And now it’s got me thinking about why we don’t make biscuits square….less waste and recycling rolling out of scraps (and I mean what I think everyone else calls cookies when I say biscuits and not what we in England call scones and are called biscuits in the US!). Just bought some spelt flour for the first time today so am looking forward to some bread experimentation ☺
You did leave me wondering with the word cookies Celia I to thought you were referring to the US cookie ( scone ) those slab pans from Cosco are great I also bought the large one that saves even more time LOL
Wonderful idea! And I love all that chocolate in them.
These cookies look just perfect!
Can’t wait to try them they look great!
I love your recipes Celia … trying to decide if I will make these but I don’t think I could resist eating them!!!! Thinking … thinking … xo
Yep, I’ve been making choc chip cookie bars for a while now, a firm favourite with my girls!
I want one now.
Brilliant! I’ll have to try these, last time we made cookies I found my partner weighing each cookie individually so he had uniform sizes :/
And those half sheet pans are my favourite thing from Costco, they fit perfectly in my oven!
I’m catering for 13 tradesmen tomorrow and was trying to decide what to make…..I just found what I’m gonna make!
Ok that’s the push I needed (or didn’t!) to buy the Costco sheet pan.
Make sure it fits in your oven first! The full sheet one is too big for mine, but the half sheet is perfect!
What a great post.. Can’t wait to try these Celia. Any particular reason you’ve chosen to to use the baking sticks?
They’re part of the original recipe and helped control the spread of the round cookies. Probably not necessary for the slab version! :)
I’ve not seen square cookies before, sounds like a winner though.
This is my go to cookie mode. I get so tired of baking individual cookies that I make all my cookies into bars and wrap them in small squares of plastic so that they can be quickly thrown into lunch boxes or slipped into a pocket to go. Peanut butter cookies made this was and then covered with melted chocolate and peanut butter icing make a great treat- and oatmeal cookie bars drizzled with white chocolate?- Yum!
Yours look wicked with chocolate overdose. Yes- square cookies are a wonder to behold AND to eat!
Hi Fig Jam and Lime Cordial! I’ve nominated you for the Liebster Blog Award
I love your site and look forward for your new post.
That’s very kind of you, thank you! I don’t do awards, but I’m honoured nonetheless! :)
These look utterly delicious Celia. To be honest, I find biscuits a challenge if it involves any rolling out or cutting so this definitely seems like the recipe for me!
Celia thanks for this fabulous tip. I will absolutely have to try this.
Any cookie its a good cookie regardless of shape. After all, it’s hip to be square! :)
These look brilliant! I love cookie bars since it cuts out all the time consuming scooping of cookie dough and using multiple sheets. I,will have to try these, love all the chocolate! Lately I’ve been making chocolate chip cookies in mini cast iron pans and putting a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the still warm cookie, quite popular with my men folk!
Such a simple idea I can’t imagine why it isn’t already widespread but square biscuit is a brilliant idea. I really must try this. Thank you for sharing Celia.