Chocolate & Cinnamon Chip Oatmeal Pecan Bars (and the Plentils Giveaway Winner!)

Happy 4th of July, friends!!

Hope you all have a safe and happy holiday. :)

Although it's probably too late for you to make these bars for the 4th, I would highly recommend that you make them soon... Perhaps for the next summer bbq you attend or the next group gathering you head to? I assure you that these will be a hit!!!

The recipe is adapted from Bakeaholic Mama's recipe for Brown Butter Oatmeal Pecan and Chocolate Chip Bars. A wonderful recipe! I followed the recipe pretty closely for the most part. I just decided to add some cinnamon chips in place of some of the chocolate chips. And I also omitted the ginger that's in the original recipe. Other than that, the recipe below is pretty much the same!

Ingredients:

-1 cup butter

-1 cup sugar

-1 cup dark brown sugar

-2 eggs

-1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

-2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

-1 and 1/2 cups regular oats

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1 tsp. baking powder

-1 Tbsp. cinnamon

-1 tsp. ground nutmeg

-1 and 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

-3/4 cup cinnamon chips

-approx. 3/4 to 1 cup pecan halves

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a saucepan over low-medium heat, melt the butter. Brown slightly, until it starts to have a nutty, toffee smell. Remove from heat and let cool while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg; set aside. In a stand mixer or with an electric mixer, cream the eggs, sugar, and dark brown sugar together. Add in the vanilla, and slowly pour in the melted butter. Gradually mix in the mixture of dry ingredients until well-incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips and cinnamon chips.

Grease a 13 x 9 pan. Pour the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Press the pecan halves on the top of the dough. Bake for 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely before cutting into bars. Makes 30 bars.

I reeeeally liked these bars! And they were quite the hit among the friends with whom I shared them. They had a very prominent cinnamon flavor to them. And they're incredibly moist and full of flavor too. There's pretty much nothing not to love about them. ;)

I actually don't often make treats that involve nuts, but the pecans were a great addition to these! I loved the way they were simply pressed into the top of the bars. They added a nice, slightly crunchy texture.

Seriously good.

And now, time to announce the winner of the Enjoy Life Plentils giveaway! Using random.org, the winner is Marcia! To answer the question of which flavor she thought she'd like best, Marcia answered: "I've never heard of Plentils. What an exciting discovery. I was going to go with the Margherita Pizza as my fav but then I got to the bottom of the blog and saw the Dill & Sour Cream and think I have to go with that!"

Congrats, Marcia! I'll contact you so you can choose your two delicious bags of Plentils. Woohoo!! :)

Oh, and friends? Don't forget about these chocolate and cinnamon chip oatmeal pecan bars... You'll want them as a part of your life. I promise.