Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
We all know that I am a fan of a good, trashy reality show.
But seriously, I tried to watch that Extreme Couponing show that everyone’s been talking about and it just isn’t happening.
First of all, they make me feel like an idiot for even paying for stuff I buy. Because I should obviously be getting everything for free and/or the store should be paying ME to purchase 427 toothbrushes.
(Plus, I’m a sucker for packaging and bright colors. And stuff that smells good. And candy and brand-new magazines. In couponing land, I am the worst type of shopper ever invented in all the world)
Second of all, I don’t understand the whole stock pile thing. Are these people going to the store so that they can buy stuff to put in their OWN store that they have at home? I mean…shelves and shelves of food and toiletries organized by type and expiration date? Hello, that’s a STORE.
So why do they keep going to the store? They have a free store at their house. I’m so confused. Really.
And if we’re being honest, it’s pretty much the same thing as Hoarders, but with toilet paper and cereal. And I quit watching Hoarders because after seeing about five episodes it stopped being interesting unless they found a family of possums living in the kitchen cupboards or a rat flattened under a pile of phone books.
I think I’ll just stick to my Housewives. Sure they’re immature and two faced, but at least none of them are taking 3 hours in the grocery line which in real life is pretty much unforgivable.
Most of you know that I’ll be gone Wednesday-Friday this week, touring the Wilton kitchens and participating in a friendly competition with some other fabulous bloggers. Before I left, I decided to make these quick and easy bars that caught my eye on Pillsbury.com. I made a few changes and they are AWESOME.
Make them. With ingredients you PAID for, please.
(click here for printable recipe)
INGREDIENTS
1 roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury refrigerated sugar cookies
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg yolks
1 cup Mini (the TINY kind) peanut butter cups
1 can chocolate frosting + 2 TBS peanut butter for topping.
Preheat oven to 350. Line a 9×13 inch pan with foil and spray with non-stick spray.
Press sugar cookie dough evenly into bottom of the pan and bake for 10 minutes.
While it’s baking, mix sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, vanilla and peanut butter in a medium bowl until smooth. Fold in peanut butter cups. Spoon mixture over crust and spread carefully.
Bake 20-25 minutes or until center is set. Allow to cool on a cooling rack. Peel wrapper off of canned frosting and place uncovered in the microwave. Microwave, stirring every 10 seconds until pourable but still thick. Stir in 2 TBS peanut butter and pour over bars. Spread evenly.
Place in the refrigerator to set. Once firm, remove foil and cut into squares.
Make these and share them with people and everyone will love you and do anything you say. And you will feel powerful and important. Yay!!
Have a happy Wednesday!!
Thanks for visiting my blog! I realize you could be doing more important things with your time. Like watching the news or washing socks. I hope you stay awhile. Much more fun than socks, I promise. 
Holy Moly I almost had to put on one of my kids baby bibs after reading this recipe… I am so making this in te next couple of days.. and yes I will pay for my ingredients!!
Good luck with the competition!
These look delicious as usual:-) Love how easy it is, too!
Wow! These look great…thanks for sharing!
Can I explain the joy these bring to my heart? No. I can, however, say with confidence that I will be awarded the Best Girlfriend Ever award after I make them.
P.S. Have fun in Wilton land!
OMG someone who agrees with me about the couponing freaks! The one I saw they bought 36 bottles of Maalox, not sure anyone needs that many or could go through them before they expire! LOL As for your squares, love them!
can't wait to try this recipe.
I'm with ya on that extreme couponing. I think those people have issues-OCD or something.
Are you even serious?! Do you live in my head? Are you ME?!?!?
I do not enjoy Extreme Couponing either. I don't get it. I get it if it is for charity but who has room for all that crap and the time. That is not time well wasted! Making these lovely chewy chocolate peanut buttery goodness, now that's time well wasted.
I totally agree …that coupon show captured my interest at first and I was actually thinking of trying it….then I snapped to and realized how crazy that would be…I just turned 60 and I'm in a decluttering stage…why in the world would I want all of that! I'm with you, I'll stick to the housewives and Survivor!
I totally agree on the couponing!!!!! Why do you need 100 tubes of toothpaste?!?
I totally agree on the couponing!!!!! Why do you need 100 tubes of toothpaste?!? These look AMAZING! ;)
I am a couponer, but do not enjoy Extreme Couponing at all. Nothing they show is realistic. I only buy what my family will use. Most importantly, there are no healthy meals that come from what they stockpile. Also, there are no grocery stores that I know of that will accommodate couponers as viewed on the show.
So back to the chocolate peanut bars! They look delicious and I am certainly going to give them a try!
Those look DEEEEEE-LISH!!
Where do you find the tiny reeses?
I know what you mean! I watch the couponing show and it just makes me feel like a dork. I feel totally stupid that I don't coupon. But I would be a horrible couponer. Half of what I buy is impulse. And I don't have half a house for a stockpile. I'm jealous that they have the room for that!
Those bars look awesome. YUMMY!
Dorothy @ Crazy for Crust
Amen to no extreme coupon-ing. That just stresses me out. And trying to find a place to store everything that I've loaded up on and the REMEMBERING where it is is a nightmare.
Not fer me.
Now these chocolate peanut butter bars on the other hand…
Seriously I think you are trying to kill me. Yep. I'm convinced of it. Oh and yes I just am kinda of the opinion that couponers are organized hoarders.Good luck this week! I am totally jealous that you all get to hang out. I want to play with the big kids. Pout. But seriously – have fun!!
This show SO annoys me too! I can't stand it. And hardly even does the person talk about giving any of their "free" stuff to charity or anything. At least give back with your frugal skills. You don't need 86 years worth of deodorant.
I feel the same way – I am all for budgeting and all that jazz, but can you imagine the space needed? Imagine all the food props we could put in our own in house store space!
Good luck with the competition! I do not get extreme couponing either. It's hoarding. No one needs 65 bottles of Tums, 100 rolls of toilet paper or to spend 6hours looking for coupons. Yikes! I never see fresh fruit or veggies in those carts. (okay the two times I watched it but still).
I would make a special trip to the store, buy every ingredient even if it isn't on sale and quite possibly even double the batch! Take that you super couponers!!!!
to be honest I hate coupons except the one for the Arbys roast beef 5 for 5 bucks…that one is cool. Have FUN at the Wilton event, that sounds like the bees knees!
Hahah, you have me laughing at both the description of feeling like an idiot for paying for anything at the store and also how the hoarders show gets boring unless a rat gets flattened under some junk. LOL.
I haven't seen the couponing show, but I can't say it sounds too fascinating. Real housewives, oh man, I like that show. The orange county and new jersey ones are the one versions that I watch, though. Always good for a laugh. :)
I'd fail miserably if I had to do all of that couponing. I'm not patient enough.
I'd hate to be behind the couponer. But I might forgive her if she passed these out to the people she kept waiting!
Lol! You are hilarious, I totally agree about the whole hoarding thing. I mean really, are they going to use 600 sticks of deodorant over the span of their lifetime? Doubtful.
Your posts crack me up! And your recipes are always amazing.
I agree with you about extreme couponing. Everyone is so amazed about how they can get $1500 worth of groceries for $2.00 but no one is paying attention to the fact that they bought 700 boxes of some cereal that their family doesn't even like!
Oh goodness, these look so good! I'm going to make them when I'm feeling naughty.
These bars sound so delicious! I love peanut butter cups~all sizes:)
Have fun at Wilton!
I'm only a cautious couponer…like if I'm going to buy it anyway and there happens to be a coupon quickly available…anywho. Crazies!
I've noticed for the last several posts, as I'm drooling through the recipe, I'm hearing music in my head: Killing me softly, with sugar, killing me softly.
I'm okay with that. I like you. You're funny and you provide more ways for me to consume the sweet stuff.
Looks delish! Like always. :)
Spending 1/3 of your day clipping coupons, 1/3 of your day shopping with them and 1/3 of your day organizing & stockpiling your purchases adds up to a total waste of time unless you donate your haul to foodbanks. These extreme couponers don't seem to do that. I've only seen one instance where a man extreme couponed to donate care packages for the troops in Afghanistan. It would be a pleasant show to watch if they aired episodes where all of the couponers donated their healthy dry goods, canned goods and toiletries to the victims of all the tornadoes across the American Heartland. I don't get their need to extreme coupon and most of what they buy, in the ridiculous amounts they purchase is unnecessary or unhealthy junk food anyway. It is obsessive and organized hoarding.
On another note, baking your bars in large quantities and freezing them…now that makes more sense to me :) Enjoy your time with Wilton!
Girl, I am SO with you on that dumb show. I always think that surely the thing to be doing, if the store is then PAYING you for what you've purchased, is to keep what you need, and give the rest to homeless and women shelters? But no. They hoard it. Because it's THEIRS. Capitalism gone psycho, for reals.
I love it when you make peanut butter chocolate combo stuff, because James won't eat it, so I get it alllll to myself. How the heck did I marry someone that hates peanut butter? Weird.
Have SO much fun at Wilton! I can't wait to hear all about it.
I'm with you….I coupon, but not to extremes….especially since my doc has me eating whole foods. Peanut butter chocolate bars look amazing!
wow! I am salavating over these bars. I've seen several people using these mini reeses cups but I've yet to see them at my grocery store. They seem like they would be dangerous to have in the house though. If I did find them, I'm not sure any of them would actually make it into a baked good though!
I have never seen extreme couponing, and I am terrible with coupons. Sometimes I print them, or organize them. Then I forget about them, leave them at home, lose them, only to find them months after they've expired and I throw them out. This happens frequently.
HI-larious. I secretly wish I could coupon like that but those ladies admit its a 40 hour a week job.. um hello!! Is it REALLY saving you money or could you be earning money at a REAL 40 HOUR A WEEK JOB? :)
And yes, I will stick to my housewives to. :)
This is probably the greatest blog post I've ever read. I had tears running down my face. You are like some anti-supercouponing kindred spirit. Thank you!!
That couponing show weirds me out too! Seriously I have better things to do than clip coupons for 7 hours a day…I'll just pay for my food thankyouverymuch! Also, Hoarders makes me want to throw up sometimes. I haven't seen one with possums, but we did see one where they took like 30 rabbits out of a house! Oh, and those peanut butter bars sounds yummy:)
LOVE these! So tasty.
Yum… These look great!
Hope you have a great time at Wilton :)
Haha I am so glad I'm not alone in being annoyed by such shows. I mean, I'm all about using coupons if I can…but I'm not going to be extreme about it.
Have fun at Wilton! I so wanted to go but already had plans. Take lots of pictures!! :-)
I don't even know what to say about these bad boys besides OMG! They look amazing.
Thank you for this amazing recipe. And thank you also for saying perfectly how I feel about extreme couponing!!
Oh how funny….we both had chocolate and peanut butter on the brain this week. But honestly, it's always in my brain SOMEWHERE! ;)
Yay! I've been looking for a good, non-melty treat to round out the dessert table at my stepdaughter's birthday party next week…this is perfect!
you are pretty much my favorite person in the whole blogosphere:)
I will be making these peanut butter bars…..only i will be making them with ingredients i bought using COUPONS!!! ;-)
I do use coupons, i do stock up, but we have a large family there is 8 of us between his and mine, and we help out the kids as much as we can, they are all grown,just starting out in life and also i help my mother and 90 yr old granny out too…so yes i spend some time clipping coupons, organizing and planning my trips, but when i come home from one of those said trips each member of my family benefits from it….And Yes i along with another couponer donated to the recent tornado victims….In the Etna/Denning area….I dont however watch the show…its not as real as they make it out to be….but then again none of the reality shows are!
Oh and knowing i saved so much on my ingredients will only make them taste oh so much better!!!
And for those who dont want to be behind a couponer in the store….
As the KrazyKouponLady says….
"Pick Another CHECKOUT LANE, Honey!"
I just went to the store and bought the ingredients for this, among other things. I had a coupon to save $5 when I spend $100. My total was $97.64. Did I go find something else to make the $100? Nope. I just put my coupon back in my purse and sighed.
I agree with the couponing shows…I do not understand why they keep going to the store either… I do love this bar …. ;o)
I'm going to have to try this, without the peanutbutter cups (only cus there not sold here)
I've been MIA and am just now catching up on your posts. So I may seem like a crazy stalker, but I just had to say…YES! I don't get these people either! When are they ever going to use all that toilet paper or eat that many cans of beans?! Donate it to a food pantry or something because otherwise you're just nuts!
I made these last week and THEY.WERE. AMAZING!!! Thank you!
i love peanut butter bars but i've never tried to make them myself (only bought them from the grocery store bakery) these look absolutely amazing.
i will definitely be trying this soon.
follow my food blog too at http://likemother-likedaughter-food.blogspot.com/
These look SO yummy!! I cannot wait to make them.
These look SO yummy! I cannot wait to make them
The other thing about that show is they do not really explain how this is even possible… I mean how do you pre order 8,562 bottles of Gatorade? I am pretty sure your coupon is like limit 4 per person or something so how do you order a whole pallet of it? And where would get that many coupons?? Do you pre-order a pallet of newspaper every week too? They try and make it seem cool but a lot of those ladies are just plain scary!
Are you talking Desperate Housewives or Real Housewives? I don't think it gets any better than Real Housewives! I'm a total addict and watch every single city! (and now I think I'll have to make these yummy-looking bars to eat while I watch lol)
this is the funniest post i’ve seriously ever read…i so heart you!