Food on Friday

I got up this morning and whipped these Peanut Butter Bars right out.  No lie.  They take less than 30 minutes start to finish and more than likely you have everything in your pantry right now.

Peanut Butter Bars

Bar Ingredients....

2 eggs

1 cup shortening

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup of flour

1 cup of oatmeal

1 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp vanilla

(the can of milk shouldn't be in this picture--duh my bad)

Mix shortening, sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter, and eggs.

Add flour, soda, salt, vanilla, and oatmeal.  It's a thick, wet batter.

Plop it in your 12 x 18 jelly roll pan or cookie sheet.  Spread it fairly evenly in the pan.  Oh yeah, I spray my pan with baking spray.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.  Yes.  That's right.  10-15 minutes.  When you remove it from the oven, it will be jiggly like my butt is jiggly.

This is how they look before you bake them.  Meanwhile, you need these ingredients for the topping:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup milk 

(we drink skim, I use evaporated when I cook)

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup chocolate chips

Mix these ingredients in a medium sized saucepan.  Bring to just the beginning of a boil. 

Whisk, whisk, whisk.  Do not try to do anything else during this time--this mixture can burn at the drop of a hat.  I speak from experience.

Don't panic.  Just keep whisking.  It will get smooth.

About that baking time.  I set my timer for 10 minutes (new readers--my oven is from 1954--no really--and so I don't always have accurate baking times) and check the jiggliness of the bars.  I like the edges to be brown and today I needed an additional 5 minutes.  DO NOT OVER BAKE.  They will seem under baked and that is how you want them.  They set up and taste delicious. This picture is how they look before you put the topping on.

Now for the topping.  The actual recipe calls for 1 cup of chocolate chips.  Today I used 2 cups.  I was taking it to school for teachers who had to sit through in-service and then work all afternoon on grades and such.  They needed extra chocolate.  I have used as little as 1/2 cup.  It doesn't really matter.  You could also use any flavor of chip that compliments peanut butter.  I think that this might really good with toffee chips or even peanut butter chips.  And if you are taking it to teachers--they will eat anything that isn't nailed to the lounge table.  Really.

Sprinkle the chips across the baked bar.  All of this is done while the bars are still hot.

Drizzle the topping over the top. I would love to show you a picture of me drizzling the topping over the bars, but my camera battery died.  I had to charge my battery while I took a shower and then take a picture of the finished product. 

That's it.  You're done. 

I know that there a million versions of peanut butter bars out there.  I really like this one.  It came from this awesome cookbook:

Church cookbooks are the greatest resources for comfort food.  Just sayin'.