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.