12 Days of Cookies: Day 2, white chocolate gingerbread bars

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It's time again for our 12 Days of Cookies series, this year sponsored by Roberts Dairy Foods. Bakers submitted their family favorites and online visitors voted on which cookies they wanted to see in the series.

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To see all the 12 Days of Cookies series so far, click HERE.

Kelly Crotty of La Vista sent in today's choice. She says she found it in the Adair, Iowa, newspaper last December. "I love the taste of gingerbread, and the description said when you took a bite it was like 'Christmas in your mouth!' I couldn't agree more!"

Ingredients

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons butter, softened

¾ cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup molasses, (mild flavor optional)

1 cup white chocolate chips, plus another ½ cup to melt for drizzle on top of bars

1 teaspoon shortening to melt with chips for topping

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 and line a 9 x 13 pan with foil, then spray with nonstick spray and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda and salt.

In separate mixing bowl, combine butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Add eggs and beat to combine, then mix in vanilla and molasses.

Add the flour and spice mixture, then stir in white chocolate chips by hand. Press the dough into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown and a toothpick comes out mostly clean, or about 20 to 25 minutes, depending on the oven.

When bars are cool, melt ½ cup white chocolate chips and 1 teaspoon shortening in microwave in 15 second intervals, stirring after each interval until chips are melted and smooth. Drizzle over bars using a spoon. Bars are quite soft when you first take them out of the oven, so let them cool completely before removing from pan.

Makes: About 40 bars, depending on size.

*Test kitchen notes: Instead of using all butter, my girlfriend, Bekaah, and I opted to use half butter and half shortening. Bekaah and her mom are pretty serious about their baking and swear by their Crisco, so we decided to give it a try.

Depending on how white-chocolatey you would like the bars, you can add more chips than the recipe calls for. At first glance we thought we had skimped on the white chocolate chips, so we folded in an additional ¼ cup.

When pressing the sticky dough into the pan, a rubber spatula works like a charm to help dispense the batter evenly.

For the most part, the recipe was very straightforward and simple. If you're in a time crunch and need to whip together something sweet for a holiday party, these bars would be a great choice.

— Staff writer Ross Boettcher

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