Chocolate Chip Rolo Cookie Bars — Gooey caramel, chocolate chips, and buttery soft dough!! Easy, one-bowl, no-mixer recipe that’s a guaranteed hit! Who can resist caramel and chocolate!!
Rolo Cookie Bars
These are one the gooiest, richest, and most decadent treats I’ve made in awhile. Which makes it one of my personal favorites. The more melted caramel, chocolate, and buttery soft dough, the better.
For these very soft, gooey, slightly chewy, buttery bars that are stuffed with Rolo candies and loaded with chocolate chips, I called upon my trusty blondie base. When I want an easy, fuss-free, one-bowl, no-mixer recipe that I know everyone will love, it’s my go-to. With 25+ versions and counting, it never lets me down.
It’s an easy recipe to memorize because everything is ‘one’. In the 1 bowl used, melt 1 stick of butter, stir in 1 egg, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 1 cup flour. For this version, there’s 1 cup chocolate chips and 36 Rolos (the only thing that’s not ‘one’).
The hardest part of the recipe is unwrapping the Rolos unless you have a sous chef or an 8-year-old who will happily work for payment via the extra Rolos in the bag and the promise of sinking her teeth into one of these.
What’s in Rolo Cookie Bars?
To make this easy Rolo recipe, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Egg
- Light brown sugar
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Rolo candies
How to Make Rolo Bars
Whisk together the melted butter, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients, then fold in the chocolate chips.
Turn slightly more than half the batter out into a foil-lined 8×8-inch pan. Evenly place the Rolos on top of the batter. Turn the remaining batter over the Rolo layer.
Bake until done, then let cool for 90 minutes before serving.
Can I Double This Recipe?
Yes, this recipe should be fine to double and bake in a 9×13-inch pan.
Tips for Making Rolo Cookie Bars
There’s really no substitution for Rolos in this recipe. A few readers have suggested using caramel M&M’s or caramel-filled Hershey’s Kisses, both of which might work.
It’s tough to tell when these bars are fully baked. A toothpick test is unreliable because you will likely hit melted chocolate or caramel, but if you hit a patch of dough, the toothpick should come out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter.
Note that these bars will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
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Rolo Chocolate Chip Blondies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick, melted
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- about 36 Rolo candies, unwrapped (buy the 12-ounce bag, you’ll use about 3/4 of it)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-by-8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, spray with cooking spray; set aside.
- To a large, microwave-safe bowl add the butter and heat to melt, about 1 minute on high power.
- Wait momentarily before adding the egg so you don’t scramble it. Add the egg, brown sugar, vanilla, and whisk until smooth.
- Add the flour, salt, and stir until just combined, don’t overmix.
- Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine.
- Turn slightly more than half the batter out into prepared pan (about 60% or so, just eyeball it so that the bottom of the pan is completely covered, albeit thin coverage); set remaining batter aside.
- Evenly place the Rolos in the pan so that each Rolo is sitting on its ‘base’ rather than laying on its side. I made 6 rows of 6 Rolos each.
- Drop remaining batter over the Rolos in heaping rounded tablespoons. Use a spatula to smooth the ‘blobs’ of batter together. You won’t have complete coverage and that’s okay because batter expands a bit while baking and some of the balder patches ‘grow togther’.
- Bake for about 20 to 22 minutes, or until top is set in center and done; don’t overbake. Blondies firm up as they cool. A toothpick test is unreliable because you will likely hit melted chocolate or caramel, but if you hit a patch of dough, the toothpick should come out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter.
- Place pan on a wire rack to cool for at least 90 minutes before slicing and serving.
Notes
- Note – If you don’t have access to Rolos, unfortunately there are no substitutions.
- Bars will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Caramel Dessert Recipes:
Carmelitas – For the serious caramel lover, these soft and chewy bars are dripping with caramel and stuffed with chocolate!
Seven Layer Bars — The classic bar everyone loves but even better with Rolos baked in!
Caramel-Stuffed Quadruple Chocolate Cookies — Soft and chewy cookies with four kinds of chocolate and so much gooey caramel! Insanely good!
Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars – Made with salted caramel PB (yes it’s a thing!) Soft, chewy, gooey and so irresistible!
Caramel Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Gooey Bars – Keep the napkins handy for these soft, gooey bars dripping with the best caramel-peanut butter sauce! So good!
Peanut Butter Caramel Twix Bars (almost no-bake) – DIY Twix Bars with a layer of peanut butter, and just dripping with salted caramel!
The 25 Best Caramel and Salted Caramel Recipes – The tried-and-true favorites are all here! If you need a caramel recipe, this collection has you covered!
Originally posted December 18, 2015 and reposted March 12, 2021 with updated text
So I tried making these yesterday and found that they were way too gooey. I cooked them for 22 minutes and the top was raw so I put it in for 2 more minutes and still looked uncooked so I added another minute and a half. They still didn’t look done but then I freaked out and didn’t want to over cook them so I took them out and let them sit for like 4 hours and the edges were good but the center was undercooked. My guests will eat anything so they loved them but to bring them some place they didn’t look so hot. Any idea what I did wrong??
All ovens, pans, climates, etc. vary dramatically and in your case, simply cooking them for longer right off the bat without taking them in and out of the oven multiple times is probably all you needed to do. Glad they tasted great and your guests loved them though!
I doubled this recipe and made two 8×8 pans – one with Rolos, the other with miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. I used 23 Rolos in 5 rows – 5-4-5-4-5 which was plenty of candy for me. The PB cups are bigger so I used 18 in 5 rows – 4-3-4-3-4. I used less chocolate chips and since I only had milk chocolate I used those – about 1 1/3 cups for the double batch. I like these bars with these changes, but I’m more into the cookie part than the candy. I used salted butter and omitted the salt. I think the tablespoon of vanilla extract is a bit much. Next time, I plan to use half that amount. I cut each pan into 16 squares and placed them in cupcake papers. My group loved the look and the taste. Will definitely make these again.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad you’ll definitely make them again!
I’ve done some of your recipes and this one is next on my list. I may try to do a separate batch with peanut butter cups cause well i’m a sucker for peanut butter cups. Well thank you as always…PS everyone LOVES your Soft M&M cookies …. and the chocolate peanut butter chip cookies … and lol everything I make off your site. thanks for making me look like I know what i’m doing.
Thanks for trying the M&Ms cookie recipe and I’m glad it’s a hit! As well as other recipes of mine you make! Keep me posted what else you try!
“The more melted caramel, chocolate, and buttery soft dough, the better.”–AGREED 1000%
Rolos are the king of candies in my opinion. Having blondies filled with them sounds SO good. These would not be safe around me at all. :)
These blondies look fantastic, can’t wait to give them a try. I am a real chocoholic and the addition of Rolos is inspired. I think I’ll wait a couple of weeks until my Son is home, but you can bet we get through a plateful of these pretty quickly…….
I love blondies, and these look so gooey and yummy with the Rolo’s added in! A few weeks ago, I baked your Carmelita’s for Christmas, and set aside one for my little man. He loved it!
Thanks for trying the Carmelitas recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
I’ve never actually made blondies before, but these look amazing, I should get on that.
Paige
https://thehappyflammily.com
Averie, you are like the bar/brownie/blondie/slice stacking queen!
All your bars look to die for!
This fudgy one could be my new favourite :)
Averie , I love your Blondie base a lot. In fact it Is my favorite. I have tried over a dozen versions of your Blondie recipes. I enjoy because it is so soft and it stays like that as time carries on. I hope u have a nice wknd. I am sure your daughter will be your sous chef more now that winter break has started. :)
She’s either my sous chef or hand model if I have something like a dip or something I want to photograph with a chip or cracker and some dip on it :)
And thanks for saying my blondie base is your fave and that you’ve tried over a dozen versions! Happy Holidays!
Blondies are my favorite especially with ROLOS!!! I love these!
I seem to recall you having quite a few gooey-ish type bar recipes with Rolos. They’re so awesome for baking!
Yum! But I don’t think I can let my caramel-loving son near the Rolos till they are baked into the cookies. :)
I had that same problem with my daughter :)
I had completely forgotten rolos even existed until last week when there was a bowl of them at work. I’ve been eating a couple (or a few….or several) every day!
They’re one of those candies that’s awesome for baking because they are the perfect blend of melty but not a total puddle. So about 2-3x a year, I bake with them and then have the rest of the bag to snack on :)
That stack of bars with the caramel dripping down totally captures your description of them! I would happily unwrap a bag of rolos for one of these ( well….maybe for 2 of them–might need one later)!
They’re definitely worth unwrapping all the candies for :)
Can’t imagine not having access to Rolo’s they are going to be wonderful in these Blondies. I’m actually hosting an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party next week and am making a dessert appetizer board…..I know….that’s just wrong. I’m including these for sure!!!! And I’m giving away the same $200 artisan wood board on m blog right now.
Thanks Averie!
That sounds like my kind of party! LMK how the blondies turn out for you!
They make Rolo minis now (and they’re the same size as the regular ones) so you don’t have to unwrap them all. It’s life-changing, Averie!
These look so good. If I were your daughter, I’d unwrap a whole bag just to get one bar!
See I thought the Rolo minis were smaller than the regular Rolos you have to unwrap. I know for sure the PB Cup minis are smaller than the ‘old-fashioned’ mini peanut butter cups that you have to unwrap. I need to investigate that with Rolos!