Recipe: Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars

I'm a very bad blogger. It has been 2 months since my last post. Never fear, I'm perfectly fine. Obligations with family and our PTO swamped me this fall. Which means not only did I not blog, I didn't read. Which is a travesty I'm correcting.

What I did manage to do was find my new favorite treat to bring to events on the spur of the moment. I know this isn't new to many of you, but for me, these were a revelation.

I've made homemade Rice Krispie Bars for forever. It's not difficult, after all. And the store bought ones suck. Ew. I even knew about various additions or flavors, although I was too lazy or uninterested to try them. Then one day, my husband calls me. He drives across the country for a living, and I figured he'd found a new favorite regional food. He had. It was these. He sent me two links to two recipes, figuring one of them had to work. They sounded ok—peanut butter and chocolate nearly always work for me—but kind of mundane.

Oh. My. God. It's always the simplest things that blow you away with their glory, but these are truly the best things I've had in forever. They are chewy, crunchy, salty, sweet...They hit every one of the perfect snack requirements...and they take 10 minutes or less and produce a 13 x 9 pan of the little darlings.

In the last 2 months, I've made 4 pans of them. I've taken them to my aforementioned PTO meetings where they were devoured. I made them for Oldest to sell at a Family Movie Night event for Student Council.  They sold out before the movie even started. I dropped some off for a friend having a not-so-good day, and she thanked me for saving the crappiest day ever because THEY ARE THAT GOOD.

The only modifications I made to the recipe were peanut butter amounts and subbing in butter for margarine. Butter is always better.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Krispie Bars
Adapted from Top Secret Recipes

1 tablespoon butter
3 *heaping* tablespoons smooth peanut butter
a sprinkle of salt
5 cups mini marshmallows (I just dump in a whole bag)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
6 cups Rice Krispies
1 12 oz pkg milk chocolate chips
nonstick spray

Spray 13 x 9 inch pan with nonstick spray, set aside.

 Melt butter and peanut butter together in a large saucepan or pot (it really needs to be big). Whisk everything together to make sure the PB is incorporated into the butter. Add salt and stir.

Add marshmallows and stir (I switch to a wooden spoon) until melted.  Add vanilla and stir.

Remove from heat. Add cereal and stir to coat.  (Yes, there's a lot of stirring).

Pour into the prepared dish. You can use wax paper to squish the mixture into the pan, but the absolute best way is to wet your hands with water and squish the cereal into the pan. The directions say to grease your hands, but very slightly damp hands work better for me. Make sure you push hard to get most of the air out.

Cool.  Melt the chocolate in a glass container in the microwave for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes on 50% power. Stir. If not fully melted, microwave in 30 second increments at 50% power until it's smooth after being stirred. Microwaving too long or at too high of a setting scorches the chocolate.

Using a spatula, spread the chocolate on top of the bars and then leave them alone to set up in a cool room. If you're impatient, you can also chill them in the fridge. Slice into bars. Yield for the source recipe is 16 bars, but honestly those are way too big. I get 20-30 or more from each batch, because these suckers are rich!