Loaded Chocolate Chip Cake Squares
These loaded chocolate chip cake squares are packed with chocolate chips, peanuts, peanut butter chips and coconut, but you can get creative with your favorite mix-ins. Perfect for snacking or for dessert!
Are you a baker or a cook?
Personally, I’m much more of a cook than a baker. Successful baking requires following recipes (aka rules) precisely, and I am of the belief that rules are meant to be broken. Or at least, rules about cooking and other totally innocuous things - I promise I’m not over here breaking laws left and right!
As a cook, I feel pretty comfortable in the kitchen. While I like to use recipes for guidance, usually I just glance through them to get the gist, then cook pretty intuitively. Lemme tell ya, writing precise recipes for my new book was rough, as my editor will attest!
With baking, you can’t cook in that intuitive kind of way. Trust me, I’ve tried! Because baking is much more of a science, it relies on precise measurements of ingredients. That’s always made baking feel a bit intimidating to me.
While this recipe for loaded chocolate chip cake squares still is technically baking, it’s the kind of baking that doesn’t intimidate me. Cookies are the one thing I feel pretty comfortable with, and as a mash-up between cookies and cake, baking these cake squares feels pretty easy. And because you can experiment with different mix-ins, it’s a recipe you creative cooks can play around with!
Loaded Chocolate Chip Cake Squares Recipe Notes
These loaded chocolate chip cake squares are somewhere between a cake and a cookie. While they lean a little more cake-like in texture, they’re still a little denser and more cookie-like than a light and fluffy cake.
I threw in all my favorite cookie mix-ins - chocolate chips (obviously), coconut flakes, roasted peanuts and peanut butter chips - but feel free to switch it up with what you love! Try it with mini-pretzels, m & m’s, or different types of nuts. I also love these cake squares topped with a sprinkle of crunchy sea salt to bring out the flavor.
If you have celiac, I’ve made this recipe with gluten free all purpose flour before when I ran out of regular all purpose flour, and it turned out great!
While personally, I’m not big on frosting (buttercream is on my very short list of hated foods, along with red apples and papaya), I do think these cake squares would be delicious with a peanut butter or chocolate drizzle. For a peanut butter drizzle, just warm up some pb sweetened with a bit of powered sugar and drizzle over the top. For chocolate drizzle, warm up chocolate chips with a bit of cream or coconut milk, and drizzle over the top. And actually, as I’m writing this, why not do a drizzle of both??
This recipe for loaded chocolate chip cake squares was originally posted June 2017. Recipe, images and text have been updated to give you the best content possible.
Loaded Chocolate Chip Cake Squares
Makes 24
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons full fat canned coconut milk
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large bowl using an electric beater, blend together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg, then beat in vanilla and coconut milk until combined.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Beat into butter and sugar mixture in three batches until fully incorporated. With a large spoon, stir in coconut, chocolate chips and peanuts.
Spread mixture evenly in an oiled 9 X 13-inch baking dish. Bake for 28 minutes until lightly golden and the center is cooked through. Let cool, then cut into squares.
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The BEST Almond Butter Blondies
Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies
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