Peanut Butter Bars

Everyone please welcome the best peanut butter bars EVER... These beautiful peanut butter bars are a family favorite. Every year my extended family takes a trip to Lake Powell, and everyone has their designated treat that they always bring, well Bry's family is usually the designated people to bring these yummy treats. 

We usually hide these Peanut Butter Bars until closer to the end of the trip (when we've run out of our other treats like our Peanut Butter Button Cookie Cups and Lemon Bars), but when someone pulls these delicious treats out of the fridge it is a total feeding frenzy, even if we just ate dinner! These Peanut Butter Bars disappear faster than the blink of an eye!

There are three layers to these peanut butter bars. First you have the cookie, it is a mixture of peanut butter and oats that produces the perfect chewy cookie. Then you melt chocolate on top of the cookie, and then you make this wonderful peanut butter icing and put that on top of the cooled chocolate. Sounds yummy? Well guess what! It is! Big surprise there ;)

Peanut Butter Bars
Makes 1 cookie sheet, about 2 dozen squares
INGREDIENTS
FOR BARS
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup peanut butter (smooth)
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cup flour
1 3/4 cup quick rolled oats

FOR CHOCOLATE LAYER
1, 11.5 oz. bag of semisweet chocolate chips

FOR ICING
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
4-8 Tablespoons milk

DIRECTIONS
1) Preheat oven to 330° Fahrenheit. 
2) Cream together both sugars, butter, and peanut butter.  Mix in eggs and vanilla until combined.
3) Sift soda, salt, and flour and add to mixture. Add rolled oats and mix until combined. Spread on a greased and/or lined cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes.
4) Remove from oven, and while hot, sprinkle on chocolate chips. Spread melted chocolate chips with a spatula until they form an even layer. Refrigerate until chocolate becomes solid.
5) Meanwhile, in a small mixing bowl with an electric mixer, combine butter and peanut butter. Beat until fluffy, add powdered sugar and then add milk as needed until desired consistency is reached.
6) Spread icing on top of solid chocolate layer and refrigerate until firm. Cut into square and serve.
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