Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

If Kelly has a Nutella addiction, I have a peanut butter addiction: on my toast at breakfast, with an apple at lunch, by the spoonful for a snack, on my ice cream at night…it’s a daily necessity. I recently found this honey peanut butter from a local peanut shop. AMAZING. Seriously. I tried eating normal peanut butter after having this and I couldn’t. It’s that good. Sometimes I just eat it with a spoon (someday my metabolism is going to quit on me and I’m going to weigh 500 pounds…)

I was having some trouble deciding what to bake…does anyone else go through these lapses in creativity? I went to Twitter and asked our followers for some ideas. Someone responded with “something with chocolate and peanut butter!” It was one of those aha! moments. Like, why didn’t I think of that myself?! And suddenly I was having a major chocolate peanut butter craving and just had to bake something to satisfy it. Right then. However I was also feeling lazy…

I know people turn cookie recipes into bars all the time. I mean, why not? It’s essentially the same thing. But for whatever reason I’ve never done that. I’m not really sure why. So I used my laziness as an excuse to test it out. I also needed to use my new KitchenAid! My dad was very upset with me that I hadn’t gotten it “covered in a dusting of flour” yet. Well Dad, here you go! Don’t you love this color?? Matches perfectly with the red wine usually sitting on my counter 🙂

This originally started as a cookie recipe from Averie Cooks (back when she was Love Veggies and Yoga). That’s how long I’ve been using it! It’s my favorite recipe of hers. I’ve made a few changes, but it’s fairly close to the original. (by the way…she has an entire cookbook full of just peanut butter recipes. I need it).

My advice to you here…use a parchment sling with this recipe. Guys. Just do it. It will make your life soooo much easier at the end! Not sure what that is? Take one piece of parchment paper and lay it in your baking dish lengthwise, then take another piece and lay it crosswise (so the two pieces are horizontal).  Once your bars have cooled you can pull the whole thing straight out of the pan and cut with ease! Plus, now your dish doesn’t need any scrubbing 😉

I wasn’t quite convinced there was enough chocolate though, so I added some more chocolate on top. Ta da! The first bite I took I wasn’t sure I had cooked it long enough. It was so ooey and gooey (not necessarily a bad thing?) and was so messy! They hardened up after cooling completely though. Enough so you could easily stack them, even with the chocolate glaze. As if they lasted that long. The entire pan was gone in under 48 hours! If you’re making these to give away…you may need to make extra. Because unless you have some serious will power, you’ll suddenly find yourself “taste testing” and these bars will be gone before you know it!

~Stephanie

Just as a side note – I don’t bake with my fancy new peanut butter. First of all, it’s more expensive and I’m hoarding that all for myself! Secondly, I’ve heard it’s more difficult to bake with the “natural” kinds of peanut butter because of the extra oils in them. I stick to the normal Jif or Skippy for my baking needs. Does anyone have any experience with this themselves?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars (adapted from Averie Cooks)

• 1/2 c butter (room temperature)
• 1 c brown sugar
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1/2 c peanut butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 c flour
• 1 c oats
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 c chocolate chips

1. Cream butter and sugars. Stir in peanut butter
2. Mix in eggs and vanilla until well combined
3. In a separate bowl mix flour, oats, soda, and salt
4. Slowly add dry ingredients into wet. Stir until well incorporated
5. Stir in chocolate chips
6. Smooth dough into a 9×13 baking dish (either sprayed with cooking spray or with parchment sling in place *see above*)
7. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes
8. For chocolate glaze, melt 1/2 c chocolate chips with 2tsp butter and drizzle over bars
9. Let cool and cut into pieces