It’s no secret I love peanut butter.
Between Peanut Butter Comfort and the peanut butter recipes on my blog, I’ve got hundreds.
So when there’s a layer of creamy peanut butter fudge sandwiched between peanut butter cookie dough, I’m in my peanut butter glory.
If you like big, bold, unabashed peanut butter flavor with rich, buttery undertones, you’re going to love these.
Last week I made Fudgy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars and had a half can of sweetened condensed milk left. It would have been a shame to throw out 65 cents worth of sweet milk when I could take a pound of butter and peanut butter and make something new. Makes perfect sense.
The bars are a peanut butter twist on last week’s bars and I tweaked my trusty no-mixer, easy blondie base by adding peanut butter like I did here as well as peanut butter chips. Some of the mixture forms the crust and the rest is crumbled on top.
The rich, creamy peanut butter filling is made with melted peanut butter chips and a half can of sweetened condensed milk. Make Fudgy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, 7-Minute Microwave Caramels, Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Crumble Bars, or Milky Way Chocolate Cookie Crumble Bars with the other half can.
The base layer is extremely soft and moist with while the top layer has more texture. There’s a slight salty-and-sweet vibe too, which I love.
The cookie dough is saltier while the peanut butter fudge layer is sweeter, and it’s a great contrast to bite into, both in terms of texture and flavor.
The bars are hearty, dense, rich, and if you’re having peanut butter cravings, they’ll be squelched in no time.
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Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick, melted
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- heaping 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- one 10-ounce bag peanut butter chips, divided (3/4 cup stirred in and 1 cup melted)
- half of one 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk, just eyeball it
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-by-8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, spray with cooking spray; set aside.
- In a large, microwave-safe bowl melt the butter, about 1 minute on high power.
- Wait momentarily before adding the egg so you don’t scramble it. Add the egg, brown sugar, peanut butter, vanilla, and whisk until smooth.
- Add the flour, optional salt, and stir until just combined, don’t overmix.
- Add 3/4 cup peanut butter chips and stir to combine, don’t overmix or they’ll start to melt.
- Turn between two-thirds and three-quarters of the dough out into prepared pan, smoothing it with a spatula to form a crust; reserve remainder and set aside.
- In a medium microwave-safe bowl, add the remaining 1 cup peanut butter chips, pour sweetened condensed milk over the top, and heat on high power until the chips melt and mixture can be stirred smooth, about 1 to 2 minutes total, but stop to check and stir every 30 seconds so mixture doesn’t scorch.
- Evenly pour peanut butter mixture over crust, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula. Work somewhat quickly because mixture begins to set up after a couple minutes.
- Evenly crumble the reserved peanut butter dough over the top. I find it easiest to make heaping 1-tablespoon-sized ‘blobs’, and after all the blobs are in the pan, smoosh and smooth them together with a spatula. The entire surface will barely be covered and there will be some gaps.
- Bake for about 27 to 29 minutes, or until top is just set; it should be very pale in color for soft bars and the darker it gets, the more crumbly the bars become. Allow bars to cool in pan for at least 1 hour before slicing and serving. Bars will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Averie,
Thank you ! That helps a lot! Now I know what exactly to do! Im like you, want gooey texture! I will do the same for brownies too!
Love love love your recipes! I made this PB bar yesterday….it was mind-blowing good! for PB lover like me this is too good to be true! =)
Thank you
Glad the recipe was a hit and that you’re a fellow PB lover!
Thank you so much for kind, thoughtful, and detailed response.
I appreciate your advice. I will do exactly what you told me.
NO mix mix mix, fold and stop when it is incorporated!!=)
If you know, why some blondies and bar recipes call for no baking powder or soda, some with only baking powder, some with only baking soda, and some with BOTH?? I tried different versions but can’t seem to find exactly what the differences are….
I feel like putting BP will make it more like cake/fluffy? Since I want it gooey, I tend to avoid putting BP…but I do want to follow the recipes…
if you know about this issue, I would appreciate your thoughts!
Thank you
Both BS and BP are leaveners and will create more lift and airy-ness. I prefer in blondies to have a dense, gooey texture which is why I omit both. BP especially will make them more cake-like than BS but both will do it. If you want dense and gooey, a more fudge-like texture rather than airy, omit the BP/BS in your blondies. I also omit in brownies. The only things I use BS for are cookies and usually a combo of BS/BP in cakes/muffins.
Hello! I love your recipes. I have made many of your desserts!
I have a question. In many recipes (including others too), for blondies, it often saids “combine/mix the flour, salt, and/or baking power, soda” “do not over mix, until just combined”. So I was changing from hand-mixer to spatula, to “fold” the mixture rather than to “mix”, gently…..and would stop as soon as flour-ness had disappeared. But I have inconsistent bake as a result…sometime perfect, sometime too dense. on Youtube, some people continue to mix with hand-mixer, and mix mix mix rather than gently folding the flours in…..
What do you use to combine the flour mixture? Why is it important not to over mix? What is exactly “over mix”? I might be “under-mixing”….. If you can give me some advice, I really appreciate it.
Thank you
Overmixing over-develops the gluten proteins (in the flour) and causes the dessert to turn out tough.
You want gluten development in bread (kneading, i.e. overmixing, encourages gluten protein formation) for the chewy factor. But you don’t want that in cake, blondies, brownies, etc. which is why you don’t overmix. However you want to mix thoroughly enough it’s mixed, and the job is done, but once you know it’s satisfactorily mixed, stop.
some people continue to mix with hand-mixer, and mix mix mix <--- Don't to that. Once it's mixed in, stop. You can fold, stir, or mix, but just don't overdo it whatever method you're using.
l’ll be making these bars for a wedding. Was wondering if I could make 3 or 4 days in advance and if so how would I store them. Thanks
Being that they’re for a wedding, I’d give it a dry run and make some now, store at room temp in airtight containers, and see how they taste in 3-4 days and then you can go from there based on the results if you think you can get away with 3-4 day advance baking for such a special event.
Ah thanks for the suggestion :D I will try using white chocolate (other white chocolate and PB combos I’ve tried in the past have been delicious). I shall be trying this out tonight !
Hi, I live in the UK where they don’t sell peanut butter chips, is there any way of making this recipe either by substituting the chips with something else, or leaving them out ? This recipe looks soo good so I really want to try it, I just wish I could get hold of the peanut butter chips :(
You could use choc chips, butterscotch chips, or white choc chips. Of course the flavor will change but if you’re in love with the looks of the bars, then I say go for it!
Hello Averie, my comment has nothing to do with the post (except the topic of peanut butter) but I was hoping you could answer my question. I had this idea of melting white chocolate, peanut butter and butter, stirring in pumpkin puree and an egg, then adding flour to make a sort of white chocolate peanut butter pumpkin blondie. Does that sound like it would work and taste good?? Or is it crazy? Please reply, thanks :)
I think it sounds great and would totally work! I’ve combined pumpkin and PB many times – those are the 2 topics of each of the cookbooks I wrote and have intermingled them before :)
It sounds like it could be on a similar track to https://www.averiecooks.com/2014/10/pumpkin-snickerdoodle-blondies.html or https://www.averiecooks.com/2014/09/fudgy-pumpkin-bars-with-vanilla-bean-browned-butter-glaze.html but with white choc and PB, too!
Made these earlier this past week and like all of your recipes, they were absolutely wonderful. I did double the recipe and baked them in a 13 x 9-inch pan because I didn’t want that 1/2 can of condensed milk in my fridge. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed these and my other recipes, too! If you ever just don’t know what to do with a half can of SCMilk, here’s a super easy idea! https://www.averiecooks.com/chocolate-covered-7-minute-microwave-caramels/
I cannot wait to try these!! I am completely obsessed with peanut butter!! If I had to choose one thing to live off of the rest of my life it would be peanut butter!!
Me too, I wrote an entire cookbook with 100+ recipes with PB and never get sick of it!
Hi Averie! Made these scrumptious bars yesterday and they are amazing. Super easy and the results are yummy. I might add a bit more salt next time (I opted for the pinch in this round), bc I love the salty/sweet combo and PB just begs for it…thanks for another great recipe!
So glad you made and enjoyed them! And yes, some brands of PB are more salty than others, and some people love the salty/sweet combo more than others, so just tweak as necessary! Thanks for trying the recipe!