Baking tips for bars and cookies

• Foil line pans for baking bars. Once bars have cooled, you can lift the foil right out and cut the bars cleanly. There’s an added bonus: The pans will need only a quick rinse and dry.

• Always bake bars on the middle rack in the oven and cookies on the top rack. If baking more than one pan at a time, place them at different angles on different racks to allow maximum circulation of heat. Alternate their placement on the racks halfway through the baking time.

• You should cool cookie sheets between batches to keep unbaked cookies from melting and thinning at the edges before they can be set by the heat of the oven.