Minnie's Crunchy Peanut Butter Bars

Hi Friends!! I know it’s been forever since I last blogged and I am truly sorry. Despite the blistering heat which makes it difficult to bake anyway, I have actually been traveling the last three weeks and was home for about 2 days in between. That just didn’t leave much time for baking or cooking so I have some making up to do! Today’s recipe is in honor of one of Danny’s co-worker’s birthday! They are celebrating tomorrow and the theme is about furry friends (I think perhaps she likes squirrels??) so they asked for nutty treats ;) A cute idea since I just love themes! Since I just mentioned ‘furry friends’ though I thought I’d sidetrack for a few minutes and tell you a little story about an incident that took place at our house this weekend! (Recipe is down below if you want to skip this story!) 

Danny and I just got back from a 10 day vacation to Florida and Tennessee this past weekend. We returned on Saturday and did some unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping etc. to get organized around the house. On Sunday, per our normal tradition, we were planning to make a big meal that we leave out most of the day (for lunch and dinner) to snack on while we watch the NASCAR race. We were planning a Mexican meal and had marinated chicken and steak in my mom’s fajita marinade (which by the way is out of this world so I’ll be sure to share in another post!) I was making guacamole, shredding cheese and cooking up rice, peppers and onions while Danny went to light the grill and get the meat started. I’m wrist deep in avocado goo when he starts knocking on the kitchen window telling me he ‘needs some help outside’. I knew something weird must be up because I can’t even open the grill when it’s on let alone light it or cook on it. (Call me a baby but I’m terrified of that thing!) So I go outside and he shows me what he’s found: a big nest underneath the grates which is now home to three teeny tiny babies of some sort. When I say teeny, I mean teeny; they were smaller than my thumb, shaking and squirming a bit. To be honest, they were quite cute but I think they were frightened. I’m sure it had been so dark and quiet out there for the last two weeks and now Danny opened up the lid to a full, bright sun and probably scared them near to death! Anyway, I kept telling Danny: ‘the mom is going to be nearby, I just know it. She is going to come back and try to get them so be careful. Where there are babies, there is a mom and she is going to be really mad you found them and probably really mean!’ He doesn’t really believe me on this but since he’s freaking out, I let it slide. Then I told him to call my dad (like that was going to really help anything, but it’s what I always say when there is some problem that we don’t know how to solve! Plus, my dad has a heart of gold when it comes to little critters so I figured he would know how to coax Danny through this.) So Danny’s on the phone with my dad, getting some garden shovels and gloves so he can figure out a way to remove the nest and I’m standing over by the grill being nosy.

I wish you all knew my husband…like really knew him because you would then understand how difficult this type of situation is at our house. Now Danny can kill a spider and other sorts of bugs but it is NOT his favorite thing to do. He is quite possibly the jumpiest, squirmiest man I know when it comes to critters. He will jump backward like an Olympic athlete when there is a small animal or large bug in close proximity. He does NOT like when these things happen and unfortunately it’s a pretty regular occurrence at our house: We have a basement and one of the windows has a well as a fire escape so quite frequently we have shrews that fall between the grates and cannot get out. It will take Danny over an hour to remove one because every time it moves, he jumps backwards, hits something and yells at it…then starts again. So please imagine my husband: on the phone with my dad a good 8 feet away from the grill with shovels in both hands trying to figure out what he’s going to do. I’m standing about 6 inches from the grill peering over to see if there are any more babies when BAM in my face is a set of big eyes and whiskers! It took me at least a half a second to put two and two together to realize it was a giant mouse sitting there looking at me! This whole time I had figured they were shrews because of the incidents I mentioned above so when I saw this thing, I don’t think it clicked right away! So I scream, ‘IT’S THE MOM!!’ and Danny jumps back another 5 feet from the grill and tells my dad he’s ‘gotta go!’

At this point, I finally started laughing- is this really happening?!  I was also soo excited that the mom came back for them! Danny’s now so far away from the grill he can’t see anything…he’s asking me ‘what’s happening? What is going on?’ My momentary shock subsided and I moved right up to the grill again because I wanted to see what she was gonna do. And God love that little mousey mom- she picked up one of the babies and put it in her mouth and carried it down her secret path through the grill to the deck and then went right underneath it. Not three minutes later I saw her come out from under the deck, back through the grill, up to the top and picked up the second one. She did this one more time until all three of her babies were back under the deck safe and sound! It took all of 10 minutes. I know you think I’m crazy for watching this whole thing go down and because I think it was cute but I just couldn’t believe my eyes! That this little mouse (I named her Minnie- hence the reference in the recipe title) took action that fast and had a plan to protect her babies :) Danny is furious that they are now under our deck but at least it made his job a bit easier- removing an empty nest doesn’t require any jumping! :)

Sooo, back to my nutty treat post! I searched for a bit looking for something with pecans or cashews since I know Danny likes those but actually ended up with something my mom suggested. I was in Chicago earlier this week trying to make a flight to Victoria and she showed me some peanut butter bars in a ‘back to school’ recipe book she had picked up. They looked quite tasty and pretty simple so I thought I’d give those a try. When I got home, I looked up the recipe online to see what others were saying about them. Most complaints were regarding the crust so I found a totally different crust to substitute in its place. Since this recipe is now a hodgepodge of a bunch of things- I’m not completely sure how it is going to turn out but I’ll let you know!

What you need for the bars:

CRUST:

14 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted and cooled to just warm
1/2 cup granulated sugar (after a taste test, I would add more sugar to make the crust sweeter- probably 1/4 cup more)
1/2 tsp. table salt
2 cups plus 2 Tbs. unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, finely chopped (you could use the food processor)

TOPPING:

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

6 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

1-1/2 cups crushed cornflakes

To make the bars:

CRUST

1. Line a 13x9-inch metal baking pan with foil, letting the ends create an overhanging edge for easy removal. This works really well and makes your life easy for removal and cutting of the bars.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the butter, sugar, and salt. Stir in the flour and peanuts to make a stiff dough. Press the mixture evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan. Prick the dough all over with a fork.

3. Place a rack near the center of the oven and heat the oven to 325°F.

4. Bake the dough for 20 minutes; then decrease the oven temperature to 300°F and bake until the crust is golden brown all over and completely set, about 10-15 more minutes. Let the crust cool completely before topping.

TOPPING
5. In a small saucepan, melt the peanut butter, butter, vanilla extract and chocolate; stir thoroughly.

6. Take off of heat and mix in crushed cornflakes. Pour over cooled crust.

This is after I poured the topping on the cool crust- before it went in the fridge.

I let mine sit in the fridge for 3 hours to harden and then cut them. The foil worked really well and it was super easy to pull out of the cake pan. Then I ran a knife in between the crust and foil to be sure it wasn't stuck (it wasn't at all) and pushed the bars right off the foil onto a cutting board.

This is a side angle view of what it looked like after it came out of the pan!

After a little taste test, I think they are pretty good. I would add more sugar to the crust recipe the next time I make them though- it could be sweeter!

ENJOY!