Tea Room Recipe #50 - Ryan's Daughters Tea Room (Terre Haute, Indiana)

This week I needed to make more cookies for gift baskets for a few friends, so I turned to one of my tea room cookbooks and found a recipe that features a beloved ingredient: Hershey Bars!

The recipe for these Hershey Bar Cookies comes from the Ryan's Daughters Tea Room's "I Love to Cook Cookbook & More," a 2000 cookbook. I haven't found any information on the internet about whether this particular tea room is still in business, so if anyone knows, please leave a comment!

These super easy and delicious cookies are made in a jelly roll pan. (Mine is a Wilton jelly roll pan and measures 15.25 x 10.25 x .75 inches.) You mix the crust ingredients, bake, then after it's cooled a bit top with Hershey Bars and let them melt before adding nuts. Although the recipe calls for normal-sized candy bars, the giant Hershey Bars happened to be on sale at the grocery store so I substituted two large ones, broke them into pieces, and it worked out great! If you love the classic taste of good old-fashioned Hershey Bars, you will love these cookies!

Hershey Bar Cookies

Dough:

1 large egg yolk
2 sticks butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup light brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt

Topping:

8-10 Hershey Bars
1 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large mixing bowl of an electric mixer, combine all dough ingredients and mix until the crumbs begin to approach the size of peas and the mixture is moist and dough-like. Spread in a jelly roll pan prepared with cooking spray and bake for 15-20 minutes, just until edges are beginning to brown. Let cool for about 10 minutes, then place Hershey Bars on top and allow to spread. Once the chocolate is melted enough, it will be easy to spread with a knife to cover the cookie base, then sprinkle with nuts. (If the chocolate doesn't melt enough for easy spreading, put pan back in oven for just a minute or two.) Cut cookies while warm for ease in scoring later. I refrigerated my cookies to help the topping settle. I LOVE the taste of these cookies!