Raspberry Cookie Bars with White Chocolate Chunks [Sponsored Post]

Raspberry Cookie Bars with White Chocolate Chunks

By Irvin Lin

These raspberry cookie bars are packed full of berry and butterscotch flavor. Now you may be asking “How are these full of butterscotch flavor if there are no butterscotch chips in them?” The flavor of butterscotch is actually brown sugar and butter, and this recipe has plenty of both. I brown the butter to give it an extra butterscotch punch as well. But if you want to throw in a 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips, I’m not going to stand in your way. Almond meal can be found at specialty stores and in most upscale grocery stores, but if you can’t find it, just throw 1 1/4 cups of unsalted raw almonds in a food processor and pulse until they turn to powder and use it in place of the almond meal. Be sure to make the fresh raspberry jam. It only take five minutes (no chopping, just throw the berries in a pan with the other ingredients) and it adds so much to the final product. You’ll definitely notice the difference!

Ingredients
Raspberry jam swirl
1 1/2 cups (170 g or 6 oz) Driscoll’s raspberries
1 tablespoon white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar or fresh squeezed lemon juice

Cookie bar batter
3/4 cup (170 g or 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/3 cups (450 g or 1 lb) dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
2 cups (280 g) all purpose flour
1 cup (115 g) almond meal
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups (250 g or 9 oz) white chocolate chips or chopped chunks

Directions
1. Place all the ingredients in for the raspberry jam in a small pot. Stir together and turn the heat to medium high. Cook until the raspberries disintegrate, stirring constantly, and the jam thickens a bit, about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool as you make the batter (the jam will thicken more as it cools).

2. Preheat the oven to 325˚F and line a 10 x 15 x 1 inch rimmed baking pan with aluminum foil, leaving at least two inches hanging over the sides. Spray the aluminum foil with neutral flavored cooking oil. Place the butter in a medium saucepan and cook on medium high heat until melted and the butterfat starts to brown. Once you see browning, remove from heat and let the residual heat of the pan continue to brown the rest of the butterfat. Once the butter has become golden brown and smells nutty pour it into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, making sure to scrape out all the brown bits into the bowl as well.

3. Add the brown sugar and beat on medium speed for 2-3 minutes to cool the butter down (feel the side of the bowl, it should be warm to the touch but not hot anymore). Add the vanilla extract and beat for additional 15 seconds. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating on medium speed until incorporated before adding the next one. Add the flour, almond meal, baking powder and salt to the batter. Start the mixer on slow and move up to medium to incorporate. Add the white chocolate chips and beat to incorporate.

4. Scrape out the batter out into the baking sheet and spread evenly in the pan to the edges. It’s a bit sticky, I usually spray my hands with a little cooking oil and use them directly to spread the batter. The batter will seem a bit thin once you spread it out but don’t worry. Scoop the raspberry jam into a small ziplock bag and snip the corner off. Then squeeze the jam into stripes on top of the cookie bar dough. Use a toothpick and drag a line back and forth over the stripes to give it a festive look (don’t worry if you leave a line in the cookie bar dough, it’ll close up when you bake it). If the ziplock bag thing is too fussy for you, just spoon little dollops of the cooled raspberry jam over the batter and then, using a butter knife, swirl the jam into the batter (again not worrying about the lines left in the cookie bar dough).

5. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the edges of the bars are darker brown and the center of the bars look dry and set. Let cool in the pan completely, then lift the bars out of the pan by grabbing the foil that is hanging over the sides of the pan and moving the bars to a cutting board. Cut and serve or wrap as presents.

Makes 40 small bars or 24 large bars.