Christmas Magic Bars topped with Red and Green M&M Candies

Published: Dec 17, '17 · Modified: Oct 25, '23 · By: Beth Klosterboer · Commission earned on paid or sponsored links.

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Christmas Magic Bars are gooey and rich with their OREO crust, caramel center, and loads of red and green M&M Candies, Holiday Chocolate Chips, Toffee, Pretzels, and Peanuts. They are so easy to make and to take along with you to a holiday party.

Originally posted on December 22, 2013.

If you have ten minutes, you have more than enough time to prepare a pan of these Christmas Magic Bars. Sounds good, right?

If you haven't discovered the wonders of magic bars (a.k.a. 7 layer bars or gooey bars) now is the time. You simply top a crust of cookie or cake with sweetened condensed milk then sprinkle on your favorite toppings and let the magic happen as the magic bars bake in the oven.

The sweetened condensed milk caramelizes while baking and turns into a gooey soft caramel that holds the bars together.

The beauty of magic bar recipes is that you can play around with all the other ingredients.

To make these Christmas Magic Bars I used OREO Cookies for the crust then topped it with toffee bits, peanuts, pretzels, holiday chocolate chips and Christmas M&M's. This is absolutely one of my favorite combinations.

To give you an idea of how you can change things up when making homemade magic bars check out these other recipes I've created:

S'mores Magic Bars for the 4th of July (Topped with marshmallows and chocolate these s'mores bars are so gooey and yummy. To make them for Christmas simply use red and green M&M's instead of red, white, and blue candies.)
Chocolate Caramel and Peanut Halloween Magic Bars (Once again use red and green M&M's to make this recipe for Christmas.)
Candy Corn Magic Bars (Red, white, and green Reindeer Corn can be swapped out for the traditional orange, yellow, and white candies.)
Orange and Black OREO Magic Bars (These are topped with orange-colored white chocolate chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips which is perfect for Halloween but for Christmas, you can use red, green, and white chips if you can find them or swap out the orange chips for white chips and add some red and green holiday sprinkles on top.)

So many possibilities!

While these bars were sitting on my counter cooling, some friends stopped by the house. I was thrilled to see how their eyes got big with excitement when they saw the dessert and they were elated when I offered them one.

What happened next had me in stitches.

Each woman began to, um, let see, how to put this delicately, make noises that should have come from behind closed doors. That's the sign of a great dessert.

How to make Christmas Magic Bars

(see the new video tutorial below)

Crush OREO Cookies into fine crumbs.
- I like to use a food processor because it makes this job so easy but you can place your cookies into a large zip-top bag and wack at the cookies using a meat mallet, the back of a pan, or a rolling pin.
- Be sure you get your cookies crushed up into small pieces.
Mix the crushed OREO Cookies with melted butter.
- Once again, I use the food processor. I just drizzle the melted butter in through the feed tube with the processor still running. The butter blends with the cookies and quickly comes together.
- If you don't use the food processor you can add the butter to your zip-top bag and knead it into the cookies or you can pour the crumbs into a bowl and stir in the butter.
Press the cookie mixture into an even layer in a 9x13 baking pan.
- For easy removal, I like to line my pan with non-stick tin foil. That way once the magic bars are baked I simply lift the bars out using the tin foil.
- Then I can peel off the foil and cut the bars.
Sprinkle on your toppings including toffee bits, peanuts, and pretzels.
Pour the entire can of sweetened condensed milk over top and spread evenly.
Top with broken pieces of red cream-filled Oreos cookies, ½ cup of the red and green M&M's and ½ of the bag of Holiday morsels.
Bake for 25-27 minutes until the sweetened condensed milk has caramelized.
- The sweetened condensed milk will start to bubble around the edges but may not be completely caramelized in the center of the pan.
- You can cover the edges with some tin foil and allow the center to continue to bake.
Remove from oven and sprinkle on the remaining red and green M&M's and Holiday Chocolate Morsels.
1. I like to sprinkle these on at the end of the baking cycle because the candies that have been in the oven the whole time will begin cracking and the chocolate chips will have browned and the new ones will be bright and colorful.
Return to oven for about 3 minutes just to allow the chocolate chips enough time to soften so they will stick to the bars.
Remove the pan from the oven, and tap it on the counter a few times. This will help secure all the M&M's.
Allow the bars to cool completely in the pan. This can take a few hours.
Then cut the bars into squares.
Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Christmas Magic Bars Video Tutorial:

NOTES:

The M&M's tend to crack as they bake and the red and green chocolate chips can turn a bit brown so that's why I like to add some at the last minute. The fresh candies look really pretty on top. Be sure to press them down using a spatula or spoon.
You can also place a cookie sheet on the baking rack above your pan of Christmas Magic Bars while in the oven. The cookie sheet will shield the bars from getting too brown on top.
Allow the Christmas Magic Bars to cool completely before cutting.
The edges will get a bit crunchier than the inside bars.