Oatmeal Fudge Bars

I just love oatmeal in my baked goods and this recipe that I found on Erin's Food Files was just too great to pass up!  I love the easy factor of making bars instead of cookies and I love the fact that it's not just chocolate chips, but fudge!  Tonight I have study night, which I always bake for, but since yesterday was Valentine's Day I did not have time to bake! Uh oh! So today between middle school this morning, class this afternoon, and study night/dance rehearsal/composite pictures for my fraternity tonight I had to bake.  Bars seemed like a great idea with all this shenanigans going on.

These bars were super easy to make and took no time at all.  I had them all prepped and ready to go into the oven within 30 minutes and then they only took 30 minutes to bake.  That gave me plenty of time to do the dishes and even get some reading done for my classes!  I hope you enjoy this recipe:

Oatmeal Fudge Bars (inspired by Erin's Food Files)

Ingredients:
For the cookie part:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
For the fudge filling:
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 15 oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease or flour a 9 x 13 inch pan.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium sized bowl and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time until well combined.  Mix in vanilla.

4. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients until just combined.  Mix in the oats.

5. Press about 2/3 of the cookie dough evenly along the bottom of the pan.

6. Make the filling: Over medium to low heat, melt the chocolate, milk, butter, and salt, stirring constantly until smooth.  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.  Pour mixture over the cookie dough in the pan and spread out evenly.  Make sure the the chocolate is not touching the sides of the pan as it might stick.

7. Sprinkle the remaining cookie dough on top of the fudge layer.  Bake for about 30-35 minutes, until the topping is light brown and the fudge layer is firm, but not set.

Enjoy :)