Peanut Butter and Chocolate Oat Bars

I love baking.  I think that is pretty clear.  But one thing that adds to my love of baking is getting to bake with someone.  My sister was over the other day and mentioned she needed a dish to take to a work potluck.  I quickly suggested we bake something together.  She (thankfully) was up for it and we started brainstorming what we could make.  

I clearly am on an oat cookie kick (see here if you don't know what I am talking about) so I suggested some sort of oat cookie.  One part of the potluck dish decision down.  So with knowing we were going to make an oat cookie...we started thinking...what goes well with oats...chocolate, of course...and...peanut butter...and peanuts!! Yep, there we go!  We decided to make a peanut butter, peanut, and chocolate oat bar.  That's a lot of peanut action going on so I have decided to just shorten the name of this recipe to peanut butter and chocolate oat bar for the sake of writing out such a long name.

It was so much fun to bake with my sister! It took away some of the stress of needing more hands in the kitchen too.  She took the pictures while I measured ingredients.  She added the ingredients while I wrote everything down.  We were quite the team.  And I don't mean to be braggy but really, we are a good baking team.  These bars are delicious!  I love that they have so many textures going on.  You have the hearty oats, crunchy peanuts, and creamy dark chocolate.  They aren't overly sweet either which I really like.   And how did they go over at the potluck, you might ask?  Really well! My sister said when she arrived to get her food about 30 minutes into the party, they were already gone!  I consider that a success. 

         

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Peanut Butter and Chocolate Oat Bars

1/2 cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup of peanut butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup of all purpose flour

2 cups of oats

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons od vanilla

1/2 cup of chopped peanuts

1-1 1/2 cups of dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a 9x13 pan.

Cream together the butter, peanut butter, and sugar until lightened in color (about 2-3 minutes).  Add eggs one at a time.  Mix well.  Add vanilla. Mix well. 

In a separate bowl, mix together flour, oats, salt, and baking soda.  Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture.  Mix until combined. Add peanuts and chocolate chips.  Mix well.

Pour cookie dough into greased 9x13 pan.  Use spoon (or hands, who are we kidding?) to gentle spread dough into pan.  Bake for 18-22 minutes.  They will be a nice golden brown when they are done.  Enjoy!

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