Cookie bars are an easy dessert to make and they are crowd pleasers! When we were invited to a friend’s house last weekend, I wanted to bring a dessert to share but wasn’t sure what to make. I’ve been drooling over the delicious magic crust recipes by Dorothy at Crazy For Crust so I decided to give it a try by making White Chocolate M&M’s Valentine’s Day Cookie Bars!
The crust in this recipe is a cake mix! Isn’t that easy? I used Valentine M&Ms and White Chocolate Chips for the topping and everyone loved the bars!
They are soft, crunchy, sweet and gooey! The other ladies wanted the recipe so they could try making them too.
Mix together a cake mix, a stick of softened butter and an egg. Pat it down in a 9×13″ pan. Pour the bag of Valentine M&M’s over the top and sprinkle on the white chocolate chips.
Drizzle can of sweetened condensed milk over the top of everything before baking.
I can’t wait to try another variety of these bars!
White Chocolate M&M’s Cookie Bars
by The Gunny Sack
1 white cake mix
1 egg
1 stick softened butter
1 bag Valentine M&Ms
1 cup white chocolate chips
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix together cake mix, egg and butter. Pat into a foil lined and well greased 9×13″ pan. Pour bag of M&Ms over the cake mix crust. Sprinkle white chocolate chips over the M&Ms. Drizzle sweetened condensed milk over everything. Bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes. Allow bars to cool before cutting.
Recipe inspired by Butterscotch Pecan Magic Bars
One of The Gunny Sack’s readers, Mari, asked a couple of great questions and I thought I would add the answers here because others might be wondering the same things. I took the bars out of the oven when the edges started getting golden brown at about 25 minutes in my oven. The sweetened condensed milk got all bubbly and looked a little strange. It basically becomes caramelized. I wondered if I had done something wrong too but they were perfect.
As far as cutting them, I allowed the bars to cool in the pan for a while. Then, I lifted them out with the foil and let them continue cooling on the counter. I would like to say that we waited until they had cooled completely but who am I kidding…we had to try them! I carefully peel the foil away from the edges (good thing for the greased foil). The edge of the bars stuck to the foil and crumbled a bit but they stayed intact for the most part. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Love making bars? Here are a few more recipes:
White Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Chocolate Revel Bars
Oatmeal Crunch Bars
Hi, I'm Tonia, a lover of food and photography! Fill a gunny sack with delicious ingredients, tie on an apron and let's get cooking!
Hi! I have made these twice now, even tho the flavor is awesome, it seems my cake mix crust is rising above the mm’s and chips and it doesn’t look as nice as yours pictured.
is there something i am doing wrong?
they only variance i did was used yellow cake mix instead of white.
I just pulled these out of the oven and I don’t know if I can wait until they cool. They look amazing! Thank you so much!!!
Fantastic! I’m so happy to hear that!
Love these! I really need to get on this cookie bar boat that seems to have sailed without me!
These bars look so WORTH IT!!
These look great! I’m actually going to make them this week but use the “Candy Corn” Halloween M&Ms. They are white chocolate but just colored orange, yellow, and white. Thanks for the inspiration!
Ohhh…I love Candy Corn M&M’s! Enjoy!
I made these for Valentine’s Day and loved them, so today I used Easter colored M&M’s and made more! I also tried lining the pan with parchment paper instead of foil. I still sprayed it just to be safe, but they didn’t stick at all and the paper pulled right off in one piece. Thanks for the recipe!
Great idea! I will have to try that next time!
Just made these for Valentine’s day and everyone loved them. The recipe was so easy and once they cooled down and hardened a bit they were easy to cut into bars. They are delicious!
Do you bake the cake first?
Hi DD! Nope you just combine the cake mix, egg and butter and pat it into the bottom of the pan. Then, add the rest of the ingredients to the top and bake! Isn’t that great? That is why others call them magic bars!
I made these this morning for a gathering later this afternoon. Fingers crossed that they turned out good. Hoping I didn’t leave them in the oven too long. What should they look like when they come out? Do you allow them to cool completely in the pan before cutting? Very silly questions but I am a bit of a perfectionist when I bake, just want to make sure I am doing it right. Thanks for the yummy looking recipe!
Thank Mari! Your email address isn’t enabled for replies. I added a response to your great questions to the post in case others are wondering the same thing. Thanks for asking!
These look awesome! I so wish our school allowed homemade goodies for parties…these would be perfect!! Guess I’ll have to make them for ourselves! 🙂
I know! I understand why they don’t allow it but it really is too bad!
Those look so yummy, and I love anything with chocolate in it. Yum! 🙂
I am with you! Thanks Ginger!
I am so making these with Kate this week!
Kate will be delighted!!
These look so easy and SO delicious! Pinned!
Thanks Trish! I love the easy ones!
Tonia these are awesome! I love love love the cake mix crust and those M&Ms are my favorites. 🙂
Thanks Dorothy…I guess you are a bad influence on me ;)! My friend let me know she made these and served them to her guests and they loved them!
Awww that is adorable 🙂 Perfect for Valentine’s Day.
If you don’t mind I wanted to invite you to come link up at Recipe Sharing Monday and share your favorite recipes. Have a super week. 🙂
Hi,
These look so good. You have a nice blog.
We are hosting our first party. We would like to invite you to link up and party with us.
Thanks!!
The Busy Bee’s,
Myrna and Joye.
http://thebusybhive.blogspot.com/
These look amazing – I love white chocolate – and so easy! Perfect!
Tonia these look heavenly! I just pinned them 🙂
<3 Christina at I Gotta Create!
Wildly Original linky party Starts every Wednesday evening.
Yum, I love anything with white chocolate in it. I’ve got a major sweet tooth.
Yum! These look absolutely delicious!
could you make this without the M & M’s? or do the M & M’s get softer? this is my concern.
so my question is do the m & m’s soften so that its not to crunchy?
Hi DeeDee! Yes, you can make it without M&Ms but I would put something else on instead like another kind of baking chips, cookie pieces, chopped up candy bars, pretzel bits or nuts. I’m not sure if the M&Ms soften but the bars were definitely not too crunchy. Even my 18 month old nephew ate one of the bars without any problems. Another option would be to add less M&Ms! I hope you enjoy them as much as we did! 🙂
THANKS.. I wish the baking chip people would add more Holiday colored baking morsels like M & M’s do.
Maybe I could use vanilla and chocolate chip chips…..or I just might make it your way and see how they come out.
ME TOO!!!!!!
Oh my Tonia! Why did I have to go and look at this. Amazing. It’s on the list. What’s this? People are stealing your content? How damn rude! Hope that comes to an end.
Anne xx
Thanks Anne! I should’ve been more specific in my description. Although I’ve found my content on another site in the past it isn’t happening right now as far as I know. The problem is that when the full content is in the RSS Feed, scraper can redirect the entire feed to their own website. This happened to me and it took hours of work to figure it out. In the end, the person owning the other website said it was a mistake and took everything down. Anyway, I just found a tutorial about how to keep this from happening again so I put it to good use!
YUMMMMMMM…making something with Valentine M&Ms is on my to do list for Feb, this looks perfect! I love all the cookie bars with sweetened condensed milk! Thanks!
Jenna
Thanks Jenna!