espresso bars

What's not to love here people? I mean we have butter, we have sugar, we have espresso, we have dark chocolate, and we have a sugary milk glaze. Breakfast and coffee in a bar--I'm all set. Let's just open a cafe that sells these and those chocolate dipped levain bakery cookies (and some coffee too, I guess), fabulous right?
I can't claim fame to these little gems, but I can say they were tasty with a HUGE side of addictive. You will eat way more than one bar. I would like to experiment again with these with new flavors be it cinnamon, ginger and hazelnut--hazelnut has to be worked in here somehow along with a creamy cream cheese glaze.
The only thing, if I were to make this again, I would use shaved chocolate instead of chips or pulse the chips in the processor to make them teeny tiny. The flavor of chocolate goes very well with the Starbucks Via, but it needs to be in small-meldable (if that's a word) flavors. Please note my changes.

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espresso bars
adapted from With Love & Butter 
print recipe


To get really flat bars, I find it works best to smooth them over with an offset spatula, using gentle pressure, just after they come out of the oven and before you apply the glaze.

bars:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed (I used light brown)
1 TB espresso powder (I used 1 Starbuck’s Via)
1 ts vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour (I used 2 cups)
1/2 ts baking powder
1/2 ts salt
(I added 1 ts cinnamon)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I used 1 ½ cups)

glaze:
2 TB milk (I used half & half)
1 TB butter (I used 3 TB)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 F with the rack at the middle level.
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.
Line a 10×15 inch jelly roll pan with baking parchment or grease lightly.
Cream together the butter, brown sugar, instant coffee, and vanilla.
Blend in the flour mixture, until just combined, no overmixing. Then stir in the chocolate chips by hand. The mixture will be very crumbly, with barely enough dough to hold together the chocolate chips.
Use your fingers, palms, and heels of your hands to press the dough evenly into the pan. If necessary, cover the dough with wax or parchment paper and use a small rolling pin to flatten the lumps.
Bake 5 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake 5 to 10 minutes more or until the edges are just starting to brown (watch carefully). Cool in the pan 5 minutes before spreading with glaze.
For the glaze, put all the ingredients in a small saucepan on medium heat. Whisk until smooth and barely bubbly. Drizzle the glaze evenly over the bars and smooth out to the edges and corners with a rubber spatula.
Cool until the pan is just warm to the touch and cut into bars with a sharp knife.
Should make 28-32 bars.