Congo Bars

Ok, before you look at the list of ingredients, trust me – these are so good! Now that you saw this recipe calls for one pound of brown sugar – yes, you read that right, take a deep breath and forget about your diet for a couple days. I was in the mood to bake the other day and went through my starred list on Google reader and knew I had all the ingredients in my pantry to make this; it was a no-brainer.

2 ¾ cup all purpose flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 lb. light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
11.5 oz milk chocolate chips (I did ½ bag of milk chocolate & ½ bag of white chocolate – but any type of chips/candies would be delicious!)
1 cup chopped pecans (optional – or any other type of nut)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 13×9 pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Stir brown sugar into softened butter in another large bowl until the butter disappears. I used a wooden spoon and it worked great! Add eggs one at time into the butter mixture and stir by hand until eggs and butter are combined well.

Add vanilla, chocolate chips/nuts and mix well. Add dry flour mixture and continue mixing by hand until all ingredients are combined. The batter will be very thick.

Spread batter evenly in coated pan and bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.