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Gayle, at Grocery Cart Challenge recently posted a recipe that will change your baking life , or at least enhance it.  It has all the components of a top ten recipe — five ingredients or less, simple to make and over the top scrumptious!  I was unable to get a picture of this delicious treat after it was cut, (I had to borrow Gayle’s picture of them cut, until I can make a new batch.)  because as fast as I put them on the plate, they were grabbed and gobbled.  If you love that famous chocolate-coated peanut butter candy bar, you are going to melt into a little puddle of happiness when you taste these.

On a side note, this recipe was a good lesson in humility and paying attention to the recipe, the first time I attempted to make it.  Of course you all know that I am no stranger to changing up a recipe.  As a matter of fact, it’s almost a given!  But, purely by accident, (and absent-minded chattering), while I baked (or no-baked, as it were), I DID alter this recipe.  It calls for one CUP of butter and while I was visiting away, I used one STICK of butter.  Imagine my surprise when the mixture turned out to be somewhat dry and crumbly, albeit mind-blowingly delicious!  Turns out, if you only use one stick of butter, you will have created a delectable crumble for topping ice cream, so in the end it was a very happy mistake.  But I wanted the wonderful, yummy bars I saw in the picture on Gayle’s site, so I tried again.  This time, no yackity-yacking, and I followed the recipe.  OH, OH, OH — success is sweet!

No Bake Peanut Butter Bars

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 lb confectioners sugar
• 1 ½ cups peanut butter
• 1 cup melted butter
• 1 (12 ounce) bag milk chocolate chips

Instructions:

The making o' the crumbs.

Crush graham crackers into crumbs.  (You could buy the crumbs, but it’s so easy and much more economical to crush your own.)  I crushed one package of graham crackers and used those, even though it was slightly more than 1 ½ cups.

Melt butter in microwave safe bowl.

Add peanut butter, powdered sugar and graham cracker crumbs to butter and mix well.  It will form a soft, moist dough.

Mix butter, peanut butter, powdered sugar, and graham cracker crumbs until a soft dough is formed.

Press the dough into a lightly greased 9×13 baking pan.

Pat dough evenly into prepared pan.

In another microwave safe container, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring every 15 seconds until they are completely melted and spreadable.

Spread the melted chocolate over the dough in your 9×13 pan and pop the pan in the fridge or freezer to let the chocolate reharden and the bars set up.

Spread the melted chocolate over the top of the bars.

Place bars in fridge or freezer to allow chocolate to harden and bars to set up.

Cut into squares (Make them small, these are RICH.) and serve.  Delicious!  Scrumptious!  Yum!  And SOOOO easy!  Make some now. You’ll never regret it.  And your family will rise up and call you blessed, and a genius, and chef extraordinaire, and… all the other good stuff.    Enjoy!

Printable Version of No Bake Peanut Butter Bars