When I was younger my mom made these cookies as a special treat, and it was the best treat she ever made. We had this big metal pan with some kind of a brown finish to it with a bunch of cut marks scraped in it, marking the perfect shape and size of these cookies. I only remember two things being made in that old pan, these cookies and another treat our family called Maple Grove Bars (stay tuned for those in the near future...yum!)
Candy Bar Cookies consist of oatmeal, chocolate and peanut butter. Addicting is all I can say to describe them. Oh, and easy! The hardest thing about them is waiting for the peanut butter/chocolate mixture to set up and harden (and cutting them if they get over baked!)
But enough with past memories, let's make some new memories of biting into this goodness!

Candy Bar Cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Butter
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Corn Syrup
3 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 tsp. Salt
4 cups Oats
1 cup Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Peanut butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Cream together the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and vanilla. Add the salt and oats, mix to combine. Spread and press mixture evenly into a 9X13 pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Do Not Over Bake! (or your cookies with be jaw breakers!) While the cookies are baking, stir chocolate chips and peanut butter in a small bowl. When the cookies are done, take them out of the oven and immediately (and carefully) spread the peanut butter/chocolate mixture over the top of the cookies. Let the cookies cool and the chocolate set up completely before cutting and serving.
*My Notes*
~I think it is best to use Quick Oats but I have used Old Fashioned a lot and they work just fine.
~When the cookies are done, they should still be soft and you will look at them and wonder if they are done? They are. Depending on your oven they might need an extra minute or two, but no more than that!
~I like to mix up the chocolate and peanut butter as soon as I pop the cookies in the oven and then put the bowl on the stove to let the heat from the oven start to melt the chocolate. If you do this make sure the bowl is heat proof.
~When putting the peanut butter/chocolate mixture on the cookies do it carefully. I do spoon fulls at a time all over the cookies (instead of just dumping the whole bowl all at once in one place.) That way it gives the chocolate chips some more time to melt before I am ready to spread it. Then just keep spreading around until the chocolate is all melted and combined with the peanut butter.
~When I am done spreading the chocolate, and the cookies are still pretty warm I run my knife along the edges to make cutting them a lot easier.
~I like to make these the night before I need them so I can just go to bed while the chocolate sets up...you know, remove myself from temptation. But if you are pressed for time, you can also place them in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. But it is harder to cut them cold...just keep that in mind.
~This time I lined the pan with parchment paper so I could take them out of the pan to cut them. Holy Cow! It was so slick and easy to cut them into those little squares this way. I will be doing it again. The only down side to this is that the parchment paper made it a little tricky to press the mixture into the pan. But I think it was worth it in the end.
And there you have it! My favorite childhood treat! What's your's?