No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bars

More About This Recipe

• I know that summertime is the time for fruit pies and cobblers and crisps and other delicious baked goods made with seasonal fruits, but when it’s sweltering outside, pretty much the last thing I want to do is fire up my oven. So what’s a backyard barbecue hostess to do? Make a perfectly decadent, crowd-pleasing no-bake dessert, that’s what! These No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough bars are the perfect summertime potluck contribution. They mix up in just a few minutes, and after chilling for a few hours, they can sit out on the buffet table until everyone gets their chance to grab dessert. If it’s really balmy outside, you can even pop these suckers into the freezer for a great chilled treat. The bottom layer of these bars is a perfectly edible raw cookie dough made without eggs, and with oat flour instead of the all-purpose wheat flour you’ll traditionally find in cookie dough (which isn’t safe to eat without baking). Oat flour can be found in the gluten-free baking aisle at most major supermarkets, or you can make it easily at home. That layer is then topped with a thin (summer-weight, if you will) blanket of chocolate because, well, let’s be honest, more chocolate is never a bad thing. I prefer to cut these babies into big, rich two-inch squares, but if you want to stretch these to serve a crowd, you can cut them into cute little one-inch bites that’ll give you over 30 servings per single batch. Let’s see a pie do that! Happy cookout season!