Prairie Princess, Peanut Butter & Chocolate: We Were Meant to Be Together

Hi! Prairie Princess here.  Can you believe Jessie invited me back to guest blog again?  Weird.  Although between us, I don’t think it has anything to do with me personally, and everything to do with my status on Facebook the other night that stated “just made some peanut butter bars with fudge frosting that are of the DEVIL.”  Fun fact about Jessie….she LOVES peanut butter and chocolate together, one of the many reasons we get along so well.   Apparently, the “peanut butter bars w/ fudge frosting” teaser caught her eye and a deal was made.  I will stop at nothing to get a guest blog deal. 

In my arsenal of sweet treat recipes, I have 3 favorite peanut butter/chocolate recipes, make that 4 because this one just got inducted to the list.  They are Buckeye Bars, PW’s Peanut Butter Pie, Martina McBride’s Peanut Butter Incredible Bars (long story but yes THE Martina McBride gave me a recipe, never mind if it was via the recipe section of an issue of Country Weekly), and now these, these “Of the Devil Bars”.  Hmmmmm….maybe I should do a guest blog series here and give you all of them over time?  Jessie, have your people call mine, we’ll work something out. 

I wish I could take credit for this recipe but I can’t.   Actually yes I can, I gave them their new and improved name, oh and also I failed to include an important ingredient that altered the outcome.  The original recipe is from one of my favorite cooking blogs www.sisterscafe.blogspot.com.  Just what you needed right, another blog to read?  As long as you’re adding to the blog reading list add this one too www.hillbillyhilarity.blogspot.com.  Oh yeah, I totally went there with a shameless plug for my own blog.  Sorry, now let’s get back to the cooking.

Of the Devil Peanut Butter Bars  (from sisterscafe.blogspot)

The Bar

¾ c. butter (margarine worked fine)

¾ c. sugar

¾ c. brown sugar

¾ c. peanut butter

(do you see a pattern here?  This is one that will be easy to commit to memory with the ¾ c. thing…dangerous!)

2 eggs

½ t. vanilla

¾ t. baking soda

½ t. salt

1 ½ c. flour

1 ½ c. oats  (this is the ingredient that I didn’t realize I didn’t have until the rest of it was already mixed up…oops)

Cream together the butter and sugars.  Add peanut butter, eggs, and vanilla and beat until smooth.  Risk salmonella poisoning, take a spoon and have dip from the bowl…it’s divine. (Has anyone ever really gotten salmonella from eating dough or batter with raw eggs?  Confession time:  I have been known to make a cake or a batch of cookies strictly for the batter or dough.  Anyone with me on this one?  Anyone?)   I was tempted to stop at this step and just have some peanut butter mousse but I did the adult like thing and pressed onward.  Sigh. 

Add dry ingredients and mix the oats until firm dough is made.  Since I didn’t add oats my dough never got firm but it was nonetheless DELICIOUS!  You’ll need to do a taste test again at this point just for quality control purposes.   Press batter into a jelly roll pan.  What’s a jelly roll pan you may ask?  It’s smaller than a cookie sheet, but has 1” sides.  Google says it’s 10 x 15 x 1, so there you go, Google knows all.  Bake at 325 degrees for 12-15 minutes.  Start watching them closely at 11 minutes because it would be a shame to overbake them.  They should be barely golden.  Sidenote:  When one omits the oats they will still be jiggly in the middle when you take them out.  It’s okay, better jiggly than not.  Wish the same were true for my thighs. 

Allow to cool while you make the frosting, oh the frosting. 

Chocolate Fudge Fughettaboutit Frosting

1 c. sugar

5 T. butter

1/3 c. milk (I used half and half because my motto is go big or go home, but that’s just me)

1 c. semisweet chocolate chips

And now for the secret ingredient………

¾ c. mini marshmallows (who would’ve ever thought to put marshmallows in frosting?  Pure genius!)

Place the sugar, butter and milk in small saucepan over medium low heat, stir constantly until the mixture comes to a boil.  Boil, still stirring constantly for 1 minute.  Remove the pan from heat, add the chocolate chips and stir until melted, then add the marshmallows and stir until melted.  Then dip a (clean, it’s flu season) spoon in for a taste and die a glorious death.  Spread onto mostly cool bars or just eat the pan full of frosting, whatever.    I’m totally using this frosting recipe for other culinary delights (ex:  cakes, cookies, brownies) in the future. 

And should you omit the oats either accidentally or because you want to be like me, you’ll need to put the bars in the freezer for a while to allow them to set up, otherwise they are a gooey mess of wonderfulness but hard to handle.  Cut into squares, enjoy and curse the day you found this recipe because it will inevitably be the demise of your diet.  My apologies. 

Peace out from the Prairie Princess.