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02/21/2013

Peanut Butter Bars

I have an great little recipe for you today, and a pregnant-brain confession to make.  First things first: the food.

Easy Peanut Butter Bars

Now… the confession.  I pop over to a lot of different blogs.  One that I read quite often is Artsy Fartsy Mama.  On Monday, Lindsay posted a fabulous-looking recipe for Peanut Butter Bars.  I thought I should make it, but I promptly got busy doing something else.  I woke up on Tuesday, and I wanted something with peanut butter.  All day long, I kept thinking, I should make something with peanut butter.  Maybe some peanut butter bars?  I couldn’t figure out where the strange craving was coming from, but I dismissed it as one of those weird pregnant things (like bacon and chocolate milk for breakfast). ;)

I broke down and paged through my low-tech recipe book.  The one with all the awesome family recipes in it – you have one of these, right?  The kind that has twice as many recipe cards, and scraps of paper stuffed into it as it was ever meant to hold.  The kind that has my Gram’s treasured cookie recipes jotted down on the back of hardware store receipts   The kind that is busting apart from so much delicious goodness.  This has probably been my favorite gift I ever got, it came filled with my friends’ and family’s go-to recipes.  And as I spent 30 minutes looking through, lo and behold – peanut butter bars.

03

So I mixed it all up (and I’ll tell you how in the recipe card below) and popped it in the oven, and as I cleaned up… I remembered exactly what started the whole darn craving in the first place.  It occurred to me just then where this subliminal urge was coming from – Lindsay.  I could have skipped all this hunting for a recipe and just used the one she posted earlier in the week.  Duh.

Lindsay’s recipe is a lot different than mine, and it sounds absolutely fabulous as well.  So if reading this now has got you feeling the way I did – that you’ve got to get some peanut butter bars into the oven, stat – feel free to pop over to Artsy Fartsy Mama and compare notes, see which one might better suit your family’s tastes!

I feel like I am losing my mind when I get hungry inspired by another post I read this week, and my poor brain can’t even remember where the darn craving came from.  On the bright side – I feel totally justified in blaming Lindsay when I ate more of these than I should have, since she’s the one who started the craving in the first place!  (And bonus, I ran across one of my aunt’s old recipes that I am excited to make next week, so it turns out it wasn’t a total waste of my time!)

Anyway, without further ado… to the recipe!

5.0 from 3 reviews
Peanut Butter Bars
 
Author:
Happy Hour Projects
Serves: 18
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 20 mins
Total time: 30 mins
Save Print
 
Ingredients
  • 1¾ c. flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1¼ c. brown sugar
  • ¾ c. peanut butter
  • ½ c. shortening
  • ¼ c. milk
  • ½ tsp. vanilla
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • ¾ tsp. baking soda
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375F and grease a 9x13 baking pan.
  2. Cream together all ingredients but the flour and baking soda. Sift the two dry ingredients together, and stir them into your batter.
  3. Press dough into your pan (you can use the back of a spoon to help even it out in the pan).
  4. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until the top begins to brown. Bars will always look a little under-done when they are ready, if you wait until they look truly "done" they will be crunchy.
  5. Cool fully, and cut into bars. Enjoy!
3.2.2708

 

These were the perfect treat – just what I wanted.  Thanks for hanging in there with my little story time today, and I hope your Thursday is off to a great start!!

Adrianne

Filed Under: Recipes, Sweet Treats Tagged With: bars, peanut butter

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. A. Skilling says

    05/24/2019 at 4:17 pm

    Excellent cookie. Will keep.

    Reply
  2. Pamela Romines says

    12/05/2018 at 7:07 pm

    I made these this morning, and by the time dinner was over, the only thing left was the crumbs! Thanks for a great recipe for all peanut butter lovers! One fun addition I added at the request of my college age nephew, was placing 5 rows of 4 mini Reese’s cup, spaced out equally and pressed gently into the hot baked bars! Yum! He took the remaining bars back to college with him after dinner!

    Reply
  3. Kristy says

    03/23/2013 at 8:16 am

    Had these last night and YUM!!! :) Shared on my blog today too.

    Reply
  4. Kristy says

    02/22/2013 at 10:12 am

    yum!! can’t wait to try these!

    Reply
  5. Medeja says

    02/22/2013 at 12:33 am

    My type of treat! Easy and with peanut butter!

    Reply
  6. Carlee says

    02/21/2013 at 10:46 pm

    These sound really really yummy, you can not go wrong with Peanut Butter!!

    Reply
  7. Monsterscircus says

    02/21/2013 at 3:01 pm

    I saw that too! Eventhough I’m not pregnant, I can get those suddently cravings for peanutbutter ;-) thank you for the recipe, going to try it out some day!!! Looking forward to your story time :-) have a happy day

    Reply
  8. Lindsay says

    02/21/2013 at 11:02 am

    Yummy!!! Your recipe sounds mighty tasty…I’ll have to make some this weekend!! So glad I could *ahem* help :)

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Easy Peanut Butter Oat Bars says:
    08/19/2015 at 9:04 pm

    […] couple of days. Like these Peanut Butter Bars from Artsy-Fartsy Mama and these yummy looking Peanut Butter Bars from Happy Hour Projects. I couldn’t resist any longer, I HAD to have some for myself! But you know me, I love my […]

    Reply
  2. Lemon Pie Bars says:
    02/26/2013 at 6:01 am

    […] I was digging through my recipe book last week on my hunt for Peanut Butter Bars,  I found this recipe that I haven’t had in AGES – Lemon Pie Bars!  My aunt used to […]

    Reply

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Hello, and welcome! I'm Adrianne, an artist, author, designer, and blogger in mid Michigan. I work from home, chase my two kids, and this once-city-girl is learning how to care for chickens and adjusting to life out in the country. I have a compulsion for daily creativity... sometimes it's jewelry-making, paper crafting, metal stamping, mixing and baking, or giving new life to recycled items. But with 2 young kids, time is short! My goal here at Happy Hour Projects is to share projects and tips that you can do in an hour or less. The ideas you find here are designed to add a little creativity in your day, no matter how much (or how little) time you have!

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