I'm Not Going to Sugarcoat It: Sugar Cookie Bars

When I saw a photo of some twee pink-frosted Sugar Cookie Bars on Instagram, I was immediately interested. And when I looked at the recipe in New York Times Cooking and saw that it had thousands of reviews and a solid five-star rating, I knew I had to give it a try.

 

The recipe is straightforward. You beat softened butter and cream cheese with sugar, egg, and vanilla; and gradually add in flour and salt. You spread the dough into a parchment-lined pan and bake. Both the recipe headnote and the text of the recipe itself strongly warn against overbaking the bars. I thought the recipe guidance as to when I should remove the bars from the oven was confusing, bordering on nonsensical: "The bars should be quite moist, and almost slightly underbaked in the middle." I understand what "underbaked" means. I understand what "slightly underbaked" means. I don't think I understand what "almost slightly underbaked" means. Logically, I would think the phrase means not underbaked -- or, in other words, just baked or fully baked. Since I didn't want to run afoul of the recipe admonitions ("Do not overbake!" and "Whatever you do, do not overbake"), I erred on the side of the bars being underdone.

The frosting for the bars is American buttercream -- a mixture of butter, powdered sugar, heavy cream, lemon juice, vanilla, salt, and food coloring (I used a little bit of Americolor fuschia gel). I spread the frosting on the cooled bars and added some sprinkles (I bought a mystery blind bag with a recent order from Fancy Sprinkles that turned out to the animal crackers mix; the little two-ounce jar was enough to cover two 9-inch by 13-inch pans of sugar cookie bars).

When I cut the bars I was concerned because the bars did not look like they were cooked in the middle. And they weren't. As this recipe is called "Sugar Cookie Bars," I was expecting the bars to be a sugar cookie in bar form. But instead the texture was that of undercooked cake. And the flavor was cloyingly sweet and very much like white box cake mix. It actually reminded me of Christina Tosi recipes made with clear (i.e. imitation) vanilla. I generally think that American buttercream is too sweet, but the inclusion of lemon juice and salt in the buttercream helped avoid that problem here. 

 

But for me, that was pretty much the only redeeming quality of these bars. I thought they were terrible, and even if they had been fully cooked, I doubt I would be a fan. I cannot understand why this recipe has such positive reviews. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose!

 

Recipe: "Sugar Cookie Bars," adapted by Margaux Laskey from American Girl Cookies, available in The New York Times.