Chunky Choco-Butter Bars

Confession: I’m not much of a baker. I used to make cookies all the time in college, but have kind of gotten out of it. Maybe it is because in cooking you never have to admit defeat—you can always add a little of this and a dash of that to fix it. It isn’t that way with baking. If you don’t measure properly you can expect an epic failure. Or worse you make it exactly as it says in The (insert church’s name here) Cookbook from 1989 and it just flops. Urggg.

But recently I was at my friend Sarah’s house and she made these AMAZING bars. She said they were easy and wasn’t kidding—they only take about 20 minutes to make. Plus they only use 1 egg! How many times have you opened the refrigerator after whipping butter and sugar only to find you have one egg when the recipe calls for two? (If your name is Nikki, too many times…)

Chunky Choco-Butter Bars

Easy and oh –so-peanut buttery, this is what every baker (or non-baker) needs in their recipe file: a quick crowd-pleaser.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking powder

¾ cup brown sugar, packed

½ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup creamy peanut butter

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 egg!

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups of your favorite chocolate chips, dark, semi-sweet or milk*

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the flour and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, beat both sugars, peanut butter, and butter until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Gradually add the flour mixture until mixed. Stir in the chocolate chips. The mixture will be a bit crumbly. That is part of what makes these tasty!

Press firmly into an ungreased glass or metal 9 x 13 baking pan.

Bake for 18-22 minutes until the center is set.

Allow to cool 10 minutes and serve immediately. Or later cut into bars and microwave for 10 seconds until warm. Pour a glass of milk and enjoy!

*I often have partial bags of a variety of chocolate chips around either left over from recipes or because I couldn’t resist eating them out of the bag! I now keep a jar in my fridge where I empty the remnants for snacking or to collect until I get two cups. This recipe my jar was about half milk and half dark chocolate chunks. It was perfect!

More baking recipes to come! Let me know what you‘d like to see :)

-Nikki