Any time I take a day off from my, ~1200 calorie per day, purgatory, I feel like I cannot just settle on a slice of sponge cake with fresh sliced strawberries and a dollop of whipped cream. I feel like I have to go all out: FULL FAT, FULL THROTTLE! It has got to be chocolate or peanut butter or both! And this past weekend, I did just that. Saturday morning I cruised the Internet looking for ideas. I came across some cookies on vanilla sugar blog that looked amazing. That was my jumping off point. And these bars are where I landed. I think they can speak for themselves and the 3 lbs. I gained eating them! They were worth it!
*This recipe was adapted from (this recipe) I came across at vanilla sugar blog*
Double PB Peanut Butter Cup Bars
-2 c. creamy peanut butter (I used Jif)
-1 c. white chocolate PB (I used White Chocolate Wonderful by Peanut Butter & Co.)
-1 c. dark brown sugar
-2 eggs
-2 tsp. baking soda
-6 Tbsp. all purpose flour
-2 tsp. kosher salt
-30 mini Reese’s peanut butter cups
-16 oz. container chocolate fudge frosting (I used Pillsbury creamy supreme)
Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 9X13X2 cake pan with parchment paper. In a small bowl mix together baking soda, flour, and salt, set aside. In a large bowl mix both types of peanut butter and the brown sugar together until well combined (I just used a hand mixer, but a standing mixer would definitely be easier). Add each egg separately and mix well between each egg. Next, beat in dry ingredients a little at a time until all are incorporated. Transfer mixture into the parchment lined pan. Press evenly into pan. Press peanut butter cups evenly into pressed batter. Put into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely ½ to 1 hour. Cut bars to desired size. The bars were a little crumbly so I removed the entire pan of bars from the metal pan before cutting them. Then I used a pizza knife to cut them into bars. Two to four bars may be all you get, especially at my house! Enjoy!