tasty tuesday: peanut butter swirl bars

Here at ps: ♥  we love our chocolate and peanut butter combo.  As you can tell here, here, and here.

Is there anything better? 

This recipe is an old family favourite.  I remember being in awe that my mother could make something so fancy!  How did she makes those delicious chocolatey swirls?  They are almost like a brownie, but they have peanut butter in them.  It tastes like angels are dancing on my tongue!

I figured that they must be very hard to make.

Guess what?

They're not.

Peanut Butter Swirl Bars

Ingredients:

1/3 cup butter

1/2 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2  eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Mix together the butter, peanut butter, and both sugars.

2.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla.

3.  Mix in the flour, salt, and baking powder.  The mixture should be about the consistency of brownie batter. 

4.  Spread the mixture into a greased 9x13 baking pan.

5.  Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the mixture.

6.  Bake at 350 for 5 minutes, or so that the chocolate chips are fully melted.

7.  Take a butter knife and run your knife through the batter and gently "swirl" the chocolate chips and the batter together (see photo below).  Don't worry about this part!  Do your best to create nice swirls, but it will taste awesome no matter how they look.  So if it isn't perfect the first time, you know what they say, practice makes perfect!

8.  Put the now swirly bars back into the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a non chocolatey area (haha this may be hard) comes out clean.  

Spread the batter out so it is even, but don't worry about it too much, as it cooks it will melt into all the cracks!

Be creative with your swirls!  You can even use a "folding" motion to bring up more yummy peanut butter batter from the bottom.

You will hardly be able to wait for these to cool before cut into them!

So next time you have a craving for chocolate and peanut butter, put down the Reeses, grab your apron, and make these happen!  Your loved ones will thank you for it.

p.s.  ♥ jordyn