vanilla peanut butter bars with pretzel crust

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vanilla peanut butter bars with pretzel crust

My best friend is approaching finals week and gave me a challenge: to create a dessert to fuel her studying with just a few ingredients most college kids would have. I took it. I may have to make a series out of it because there are so many possibilities! here's what i came up with for round 1 though. if you have pretzels, butter, peanut butter, sugar, eggs and any sort of chocolate chip, you are set!

pretzel crust
3. 5 cups crushed pretzels
1 cup (2sticks) butter
5 Tbs sugar

Peanut butter cookie layer-->  see note at bottom
2 cups peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
Optional: I added 2 tsp cinnamon, just cause i love it.

Vanilla Topping
1 pkg vanilla almond bark (equivalent to 2 bags of white chocolate chips)
-- this is where you can sub in any chocolate chips you like or have on hand

Directions:

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. crush pretzels if not already done until you have 3.5 cups worth. melt butter in microwave safe bowl and stir in 5 Tbs sugar. once sugar is dissolved, add pretzels to bowl and stir until coated. press the pretzel mixture into the greased pan and bake for 8 minutes.

2. while pretzel crust bakes, mix ingredients for peanut butter cookie layer. allow pretzel crust to cool a few minutes and then press the peanut butter cookie dough onto the crust, being careful not to push too hard and break the crust below. this is a very wet dough so greasing hands with a little butter or cooking spray helps to prevent it from sticking to your hands as much. bake the pretzel and cookie dough for approximately 20 minutes or until the edges begin to brown and the center holds- will still be soft and seem slightly undone, but this dough continues to bake and harden.

3. while peanut butter cookie layer cools, melt the almond bark/ white chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. be sure to check every 10-15 seconds and stir so that the topping doesn't scorch. once melted completely, pour over peanut butter cookie layer. can then garnish with more pretzel or peanuts, but be sure to do this step while the topping is still melted so that whatever you add sticks.

4. allow to cool completely and cut into bars

Now, I used vanilla almond bark, because, why not? milk or dark chocolate chips would also be amazing, or butterscotch if your into that. I limited myself to pretty basic layers because this recipe is intended to be very basic with common ingredients, but i am a huge advocate of doctoring things up. Add chocolate chips to the cookie layer, or raisins, or peanuts, add coconut to the top, or chocolate chips and do a white and milk chocolate swirl thing. the cookie layer is versatile and you can add what you like, you can also leave out the vanilla topping to make this a bit healthier.

also, if you don't have pretzels, you can sub in graham crackers for the crust and be just fine. if you don't have peanut butter... you can sub in nutella... yep. I went there. chocoholics of the world listen up. you can sub in nutella for the peanut butter. if you sub in chocolate chips for the white chocolate (or don't because nutella and white chocolate would be awesome too) you would have a great chocolatey amazing thing.. I'm going to try that next time i think.

--> peanut butter cookie layer: this dough can be made and then baked as a cookie as well and it works great! mix as indicated above and drop spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. bake for 8-10 minutes and be sure NOT to over bake, the bottoms burn easily.

Enjoy!