These no-bake peanut butter bars will be ready before you know it. So let’s get started. First off, get a baking dish for this no-bake treat and line it with parchment paper or foil. You could use an 8*8 or a 9*9-inches square dish. It’s really up to you, though. It’s just gonna be how thick your peanut butter bars are.
HOW TO FULLY LINE UP YOUR DISH WITH A PARCHMENT PAPER:
Place your sheet of parchment down on your work surface, and center your baking pan on top of it. Using a pencil or marker, mark each of the 4 corners of the pan. Set the baking pan to the side. Using scissors, cut from each corner to the corresponding mark.
Now after it’s been cut and folded, it should just kind of gracefully plop in with a little bit of help. Your dish is ready to go. Everything will come out in a snap and there’ll be no cleanup. It’s perfect.
NOW LET’S START MAKING OUR NO-BAKE PEANUT BUTTER BARS BASE:
Get a large bowl out and we’re gonna place one cup of butter in there. I’m using unsalted because my peanut butter has salt added, but it’s kind of to taste. So it’s however you want. Cutting it into pieces so it melts easily and this is gonna go into the microwave in bursts of like 30 seconds until everything is nice and melty.
Cutting your butter makes it melt faster but it also helps prevent the dreaded butter explosion in the microwave, which I have had happen to me way too many times. Okay. 30-second bursts until it’s all melted. Once your butter is melted, set it aside for just a bit, and then we need to crush some crackers up.
I’m using graham crackers but you could use any cookie that you enjoy as well, like speculoos cookies, AKA Biscoff, shortbread, everything will work. By the way, you can buy pre-crushed graham crackers, but I actually like the bigger pieces in this.
There’s something so amazing about creamy peanut butter with crunchy crackers and the chocolate inside. It’s a really delicious treat. We want about two cups of crushed crackers. If you’re weighing it out, that’s 240 grams. I had some extra saved over from before. I should’ve crushed this on the paper. That would’ve been so much easier.
I have my butter melted, my crackers crushed, and it’s time to add the peanut butter. I want one cup. It’s easiest to weigh it out though, because you know, transferring it to a cup, then transferring it to a bowl. That’s too many dishes. You’ll want 300 grams or so. All these measurements are you know, it’s give or take. Any way you cut it, this is gonna be delicious. So you can have a little bit less, a little bit more. You could do things like use crunchy peanut butter or creamy. It’s whatever you’d like.
And now we’re gonna cream this up until it’s nice and smooth. You don’t want any pockets of pure butter hanging around. So just get a nice, smooth consistency. Nice and like, buttery peanut butter. This actually reminds me of my favorite snack. I liked toast with butter and peanut butter on top of that. It is (blowing kisses) delicious treat. I should’ve been monitored in the kitchen a little bit more.
Now it’s time to add in the powdered sugar. I want 210 grams. That’s one and three-quarters of a cup. I think that makes these perfectly sweet. You want powdered sugar because it’s gonna be really, really creamy. That matches well with the crunchy. You don’t want granulated sugar that’s gonna crunch on your teeth in all the wrong ways.
The scale’s done. Now mix this up one more time until it is nice and smooth. And work on getting any clumps of powdered sugar broken up. Clean those beaters off. Before I add my crumbs in, I’m gonna just scrape the bowl down a little bit. There might be a bit of powdered sugar or butter here and there that we want to just mix in. One cup. Two cups exactly. That’s amazing. I didn’t measure it out before. Fold this in.
The reason we’re not mixing it is just because we wanna maintain those larger cracker pieces. There’s really no watery liquid in here. So even if you refrigerate these for a couple days, the peanut butter bars are still gonna have that crunchy, creamy, delicious texture. It really adds a lot to them. If you wanna be fancy, you could add a teaspoon of vanilla. You could add any flavors you’d like. Maybe a touch of cinnamon. It’s really up to you. As is, this is basically amazing.
Get your square dish out again and transfer the mixture into it and smooth it out. I’m having to restrain myself and not just put this directly into my mouth. Just smooth it out right now to the edges. It definitely does not have to be perfect. We’re gonna cover this all with chocolate in just a moment.
After you’re done smoothing, you can let this hang out in the refrigerator while we make our chocolate topping, just to get it started on the chill. To top off our peanut butter bars, we’re adding in one and a half cups of semi-sweet chocolate. In you go. And you could use a little bit less, like down to one cup if you want a thinner layer of chocolate.
You could also use milk or bittersweet. It’s really up to you. I’m also adding in the magical ingredient, which is a quarter cup or 65 grams of peanut butter. This is gonna go into the microwave in 30 to 40-seconds bursts and you want it to be almost all melted.
The residual heat will complete the melting process. Also, stir after each burst. Few bursts in the microwave and if there are a couple of lumps, all you have to do is just stir, stir, stir. It’s pretty hot, so any little bits of chocolate will melt and be silky smooth. I can’t tell you how amazing chocolate and peanut butter melted together are. They are obviously the best.
So once your chocolate is perfectly smooth and ready to spread, get that peanut butter bar back out of the fridge and pour the melted chocolate over the top. Smoothing this out with a spatula and just move it towards the ends. All right. So now just move that spatula back and forth and create a nice little wave.
One more quick trip into the fridge and we’ll cut them up. My peanut butter bars chilled for a little bit over an hour and they’re totally set. That, by the way, is the magic of parchment paper. Fold your paper down and then just cut them into bars that you enjoy eating. They could be small rectangles, squares, whatever you’d like.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup butter or margarine, melted
- 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 4 tablespoons peanut butter
INSTRUCTIONS:
1 ) Mix the butter or margarine in a medium bowl, graham cracker crumbs, confectioners’ sugar, and 1 cup peanut butter until well blended.
2 ) Press evenly into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 inch pan.
3 ) In a metal bowl over simmering water, or in the microwave, melt the chocolate chips with the peanut butter, stirring occasionally until smooth. Spread over the prepared crust.
4 ) Refrigerate for at least one hour before cutting into squares.
ENJOY!