Chili's Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie Bars

Chili's quietly discontinued the Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie. So here's the copycat. Chewy chocolate chip, coconut, and walnut bars, topped with ice cream, chocolate sauce, and caramel.

If you're wondering what happened to Chili's Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie, they removed it from their menu around 2020.

It was the one I always craved and ordered: a warm chocolate chip cookie bar under a melting scoop of vanilla ice cream, with chocolate sauce and caramel running down the sides.

My copycat paradise pie recipe gets all of that, with one change: there's no sizzling skillet. It bakes up as bars. A graham cracker crust under a chewy cookie layer packed with chocolate chips, toasted walnuts, and coconut, baked to golden brown.

Why make it as bars

At the restaurant, each order came as a slice sizzling in its own small skillet. It was great for dining out, less so for feeding a crowd. Baked as bars in one pan, the same batter gives you a chewy cookie layer with clean edges you can cut into as many squares as you want. 

Serve a few warm and store the rest. Just warm for a few seconds so the center gets soft, then top with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and caramel. They're fantastic on their own as a room temperature cookie bar too. And if you like these, try my s'mores cookie bars next.

Ingredients

• Graham cracker crust: graham crumbs, butter, and a little sugar pressed into a quick base. This is the layer that earns these their "pie" name. You can skip it (see Variations) if you want it simpler.
• Unsalted butter: melted, not creamed. That's what gives these bars their dense, chewy blondie texture instead of a cakey crumb.
• Brown sugar: gives the bars  the chew and that faint butterscotch flavor.
• Eggs, plus an extra yolk: the extra yolk is the trick for soft, fudgy centers.
• Vanilla extract: use the real thing. Avoid imitation extract. 
• All purpose flour: just enough structure to hold the bars together.
• Baking powder: a little lift so they stay chewy rather than heavy.
• Cinnamon: a little in the batter stands in for the cinnamon butter the restaurant sizzled its slices in.
• Salt: balances the sweetness.
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips: semi-sweet keeps them from tipping too sweet against the coconut. There's a generous amount here to create a melted chocolate layer.
• Chopped walnuts: toasted, for that nutty depth. They're half of what makes this a Paradise Pie and not a plain chocolate chip bar.
• Sweetened shredded coconut: you can also use unsweetened if you want to lower the sweetness of the bars just a touch.
• Vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and caramel sauce: the trio that turns a cookie bar into a Paradise Pie.

How to make Chili's Paradise Pie bars

Start with the crust. Press the graham cracker mixture firmly into a parchment lined 9×13 pan and bake it for about ten minutes, then set it aside to cool while you make the filling and drop the oven to 325°F.

For the filling, let your melted butter cool for a few minutes first so it won't cook the eggs, and use room temperature eggs so everything blends smoothly.

Once the wet and dry come together, fold with a spatula just until the last streak of flour disappears. This will give the best texture.

Then build the layers, which is the only fussy part. Spread about a cup of the batter over the cooled crust in a thin, even layer, working gently so you don't drag the crust up with it.

Scatter the chocolate chips over the batter and press them in lightly so they stay put when the top layer goes on. Fold the coconut and walnuts into the rest of the batter. It'll be thick, so drop it in spoonfuls around the pan, then spread it smooth to cover the chips.

Bake at 325°F for about 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs, not clean. Pull them before they look fully done, since they firm up as they cool. Let the bars cool in the pan before you cut them.

How to serve Chili's Paradise Pie

This is the part that earns the name. A square on its own is a good cookie bar. Warm and à la mode, it's the Paradise Pie.

Warm a square first,  just until the center goes soft and the chocolate turns melty again. (About 25 seconds in the microwave, or a few minutes in a low oven if you're doing several).

Set a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top while it's still warm so it starts to melt into the bar, then drizzle chocolate sauce and caramel sauce over everything and finish with a few chopped walnuts if you want the crunch. Serve it right away, while the cold ice cream and the warm bar are still fighting each other. 

For the full Chili's effect, you can still melt a little butter with a pinch of cinnamon in a small skillet and set the warm bar in it before adding the ice cream.

That sizzling cinnamon butter is the detail most copycats leave out. But since there's already cinnamon baked into the bars, you're not missing anything by skipping it.

Variations

• Skip the crust. The bars are great on their own. Leave out the crust ingredients, line the pan, and spread that first thin layer of batter straight onto the parchment. Everything else stays the same.
• Switch up the nuts. Toasted pecans or macadamia nuts work in place of the walnuts.
• Go darker. Swap the semi-sweet chocolate chips for dark chocolate or chopped chocolate if you want more contrast against the coconut.

Tips & storage

Toast the walnuts before they go in. Five to eight minutes in the oven deepens their nutty flavor and keeps them from going soft in the batter.

If your brown sugar has hardened into lumps, break them up or soften it first. Hard bits won't dissolve into the butter and you'll get uneven pockets. (Here's how to soften brown sugar if yours has gone rock hard.) 

Stored airtight at room temperature, the bars keep for about four days. They'll hold a little longer in the fridge, though the crust softens over time.

To serve them warm again, give a square about 25 seconds in the microwave. They also freeze well: wrap the cut bars and freeze for up to three months, then thaw at room temperature before warming.