Easy Five Layer Bars are easy, gooey, sticky sweet cookie bars. A kid-friendly dessert with chocolate chips, coconut, pecans and a graham cracker crust.
Like Classic Brownies, this old fashioned Bar Recipe is an easy dessert made with common pantry items that can feed a crowd. These chewy cookie bars are great for potlucks, parties, and bake sale treats!
FIVE LAYER BARS
These easy magical layer bars are a dream come true for your sweet tooth! Five layers of sweetness are balanced out with a buttery graham cracker crust. You’ll love this amazing dessert that uses baking ingredients you have on hand. Anything goes in a Five Layer Bar recipe so if you’re out of a “layer”, you can easily make a swap.
The magic ingredient in Five Layer Bars is a can of sweetened condensed milk. Poured over the bars as the final layer, it is the “glue” that keeps the bars together. As the cookie bars bake the sweetened condensed milk caramelizes. The bake time isn’t long enough to turn it into Dulce de Leche but long enough to become a sticky caramel as it cools.
No sweetened condensed milk on hand? Before you rush out to the store, check out the sweetened condensed milk recipe in this post. It takes about an hour to make and cool down, but it is a great swap made with everyday ingredients. Homemade sweetened condensed milk is also great for those who need a non-dairy option that won’t break the bank.
While we all love the gooeyness of Five Layer Bars… they get real melty and sticky as the weather heats up. If you are bringing Five Layer Bars to a summer cook out, you want to keep them indoors (or in a cooler) and bring them out right before serving. These chewy cookie bars can be kept at room temperature but if it’s hot, you may want to put them in the fridge.
MORE FUN DESSERT RECIPES
Rainbow Cupcakes with Vanilla Cloud Frosting
Sour Patch Grapes – Healthier than the Candy!
Cookies and Cream Bread (Oreo Bread)
Potato Chip Clusters
Tips for Five Layer Bars
- For easier clean up, line your baking dish with parchment paper. This also helps to cut the bars. Simply lift the parchment paper to remove the bars and slice on a cutting board.
- Don’t push the graham cracker crust in the pan too hard. If it’s too firm, the sweetened condensed milk won’t be able to seep down into the crust.
- Cool the Five Layer Bars completely before cutting into them. The sweetened condensed milk turns into a caramel that binds everything together and gets firm as it cools.
Create a free account to Save Recipes
VARIATIONS ON FIVE LAYER BARS
- Chocolate Chips: Substitute any of your favorite baking chips like dark chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, or caramel chips. You can also do a mix of chocolate chips and flavored baking chips!
- Nuts: You can use any chopped nuts you have on hand. Try walnuts, almonds, and peanuts, or if you have a jar of roasted mixed nuts, those work too!
- Cookie Crust: Instead of graham crackers, use vanilla wafers, cake mix, gingersnaps, or Oreo cookies for the crust on these cookie bars.
- Dried Fruit: Mix in dried cranberries, pineapples, apricots, or cherries for an easy 6th layer that packs a chewy fruity punch.
Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 2 cups whole milk
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a medium saucepan, whisk the sugar and milk until combined.
- bring the milk mixture to a low simmer over medium heat, whisking often.
- Turn down to low heat and simmer until mixture has reduced by half.
- Once reduced, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
- Cool completely before storing in a glass jar and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
Note: You can use any non-dairy milk for vegan Sweetened Condensed Milk. Try this recipe with coconut milk!
MORE DELICIOUS BROWNIE AND BAR RECIPES:
Brownies
Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies (Brookies)
Oreo Brownies
Fudge Iced Brownies
HOW TO STORE FIVE LAYER BARS
- Serve: Place Fiver Layer Bars in a plastic bag, or cover pan with plastic wrap, and keep at room temperature for up to 3 days.
- Store: Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container, with parchment paper between layers, for up to 1 week. Bring to room temperature before serving.
- Freeze: Use parchment paper between layers to keep Five Layer Bars from sticking. Freeze for up to 3 months and defrost on the counter to serve.
Ingredients
- 2 cups graham cracker crumbs , 16 full crackers
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter , melted
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup pecans , chopped
- 1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9x13 baking pan with baking spray.
- Combine the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a bowl and mix until the graham cracker crumbs are moistened.
- Press the crust gently into your baking pan then layer on the chocolate chips, pecans and coconut.
- Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the layers and bake for 30 minutes.
- Let the bars cool completely before slicing (keep your squares small to prevent breaking).
Nutrition
Want to save this recipe? Create a free account to easily save your favorite recipes
Made this recipe yesterday, super yummy!! I added a few extra pecans cause I love nuts, and I would probably only bake it for 20-23minutes. I pulled mine out at 25 minutes and it was a little on the well done side the edges were super hard and tough to eat but the center was delicious! Will definitely make again 😉
I need a sugar free version. So could I use Splenda in place of the sugar for both the Homemade condensed milk and in the recipe as well? Maybe you could include some sugar free alternatives?
I haven’t tested it using any alternatives so I’m not comfortable giving a recommendation.