Once again I bring to you one of my favorite flavor combinations: Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Oatmeal. I found today’s recipe on a fellow blog and the description and pictures tempted me to the point that I finally caved in and decided to give them a try. I am sure glad I did! I changed up the recipe a bit as reflected in the ingredients and recipe below and in my opinion, they changes were a success.
These bars are just wonderful! The crust and topping has a subtle caramel flavor thanks to all that butter and brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar, which intensifies and deepens the caramel flavor). The filling has a nice light peanut butter flavor without being too overpowering or sweet, almost like creamy peanut butter fudge.
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Dream Bars
Ingredients:
1 King size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup candy bars, roughly chopped
1 cup Milk Chocolate Chips
1 cup brown sugar (I used Dark brown sugar)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
2 1/4 cups Quick Cooking oatmeal (NOT instant)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup peanut butter (I used creamy)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup melted butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Line a 9×13 pan with tin foil and spray lighlty with PAM.
In a medium mixing bowl, stir together melted butter, sugar, soda, oatmeal, flour & salt until it’s crumbly.
Set aside about 1 cup or a little more.
Press the rest of the crust into prepared pan. Bake crust for 10 minutes. May 118
While crust is cooking, in a small bowl, stir together the peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk.
Once crust has baked, evenly pour and spread peanut butter filling over the baked crust.Be gentle so you don’t pull up the warm crust while you spread the filling.
Evenly sprinkle the reserved crumbs on top of the peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk mixture. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, remove from oven and sprinkle the chopped candy bars and chocolate chips evenly over the top. Return to oven to bake for another 5-10 minutes or until topping is light golden brown and candy bars/chips are melting.
Allow to cool to make cutting and serving easier.