Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars | Cookies and Cups

These no-bake chocolate peanut butter bars are fudgy, buttery, and simple to make with simply 5 components. These style JUST like peanut butter cups, with a crunchy peanut butter filling smothered in a chocolatey prime layer!

Craving extra dessert bar recipes? Attempt my magic bars (you may additionally know them as 7-layer bars) and these chewy peanut butter passion bars.

Why You’ll Love These Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Is there something higher than chocolate and peanut butter? Not in my home there isn’t. I revisited these chocolate peanut butter bars as a last-minute dessert just lately. Boy, did they disappear rapidly! Right here’s why you’ll wish to make these bars ASAP:

• Buttery and chocolatey. Briefly, you are taking a thick layer of crunchy peanut butter goodness and slather it with chocolate. These chocolate peanut butter bars had been impressed by Paula Deen’s recipe (love her!). Complete bliss.
• Give your oven a relaxation. It is a no-bake dessert, so the oven can sit this one out. I like making these bars once I entertain, or throughout the holidays, when my oven is in any other case occupied with baked ham or a casserole.
• 5 components. Dessert doesn’t get a lot less complicated, or higher. There’s a superb probability that the components for these chocolate peanut butter bars are already ready in your pantry.

Components You’ll Want

If you recognize Paula Deen, you recognize that these dessert bars are loaded with butter! I’ve discovered to simply embrace it. I’ve tweaked her authentic recipe for my very own ease, although, and included some ingredient notes right here. You’ll discover a printable checklist within the recipe card under the put up. 

• Butter – Salted or unsalted will work right here. Take your butter stands proud of the fridge to melt earlier than you begin. You may also use margarine.
• Peanut Butter – Use easy or crunchy peanut butter (I like the additional texture that comes with crunchy). Whichever you select, be sure it’s shelf-stable peanut butter and never the pure sort, which makes these bars oily.
• Powdered Sugar – Additionally known as confectioner’s sugar. Sifting the sugar beforehand removes any lumps and retains the peanut butter filling easy.
• Graham Cracker Crumbs – Cookie crumbs assist bind the filling components in order that the bars maintain collectively. You may also use crushed Nilla wafers, or Ritz crackers for a sweet-salty mixture. 
• Chocolate Chips – You’ll soften semi-sweet or darkish chocolate chips (or chopped chocolate) for the chocolate prime layer.

Methods to Make Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

I get so enthusiastic about these buttery bars loaded with chocolate that I generally overlook they want time to set. Right here’s a brief step-by-step displaying the right way to make the most effective chocolate and peanut butter bars. Scroll all the way down to the recipe card for printable directions.

• Put together the filling. Begin by mixing the peanut butter with butter, sugar, and graham crackers in a meals processor.

• Assemble the bars. Press the combination right into a frivolously greased casserole dish. Subsequent, soften the chocolate within the microwave. Unfold this over the peanut butter layer.
• Chill. Let the bars relaxation whereas the chocolate cools fully, after which transfer them to the fridge. 

Add Toppings

I like altering up these chocolate peanut butter bars with completely different garnishes. The trick is so as to add any toppings whereas the melted chocolate continues to be moist. Sprinkle over chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, chopped nuts, crushed pretzels, or rainbow sprinkles. 

After the chocolate has set, you can too drizzle the tops of your bars with icing, fudge sauce, or homemade caramel sauce.

Ideas and Variations

• Solely frivolously grease the pan. Coat the baking dish or pan you’re utilizing with cooking spray after which wipe out the surplus grease with a paper towel. This manner the underside of the bars received’t be too greasy.
• Chill the bars. Quite a lot of chocolate peanut butter bar recipes advocate serving at room temperature. Nonetheless, I’ve all the time discovered that these bars arrange higher when chilled. They’re much less sticky and simpler to deal with. Be happy to serve these at whichever temperature works greatest for you.
• Add a contact of honey. Sweeten up these bars with honey, as I do in my chocolate and honey peanut butter bars (one other straightforward no-bake recipe!).
• Give these bars a cookie crust. These chocolate peanut butter bars are rather a lot like my Lady Scout cookie-inspired Tagalong bars. In that recipe, I swap the graham crackers for a baked shortbread crust earlier than including a peanut butter filling and chocolate. You may also like these chocolate caramel shortbread bars.

How Lengthy Do These Peanut Butter Bars Final?

• Refrigerate. Retailer your chocolate peanut butter bars in an hermetic container within the fridge for as much as 4-5 days. 
• Freeze. These bars might be frozen for as much as 2 months. Wrap them tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap or place them right into a freezer bag. Defrost within the fridge earlier than serving.

Extra Dessert Bar Recipes

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