Peanut Butter No-Bake Bars
Published May 28, 2020
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
- Total Time
- 20 minutes, plus chilling
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
FOR THE BASE
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy), or use another nut butter
Pinch of kosher salt (optional)
½ cup cookie crumbs, such as graham crackers or gingersnaps, or use almond flour, coconut flour or shredded coconut
About 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
FOR THE TOPPING
6 ounces chocolate chips or chopped chocolate, any percentage (1 cup)
½ tablespoon coconut oil or butter
Flaky sea salt, shredded coconut, sliced almonds, chopped honey-roasted peanuts, or crushed pretzels, for sprinkling (optional)
Preparation
- Step 1
Make the base: Heat butter in a pot or skillet, letting it melt and bubble and turn brown. It will smell nutty. Add peanut butter, and turn off the heat. (If your nut butter is unsalted, add a pinch of salt.) Stir it all around until the peanut butter melts, then stir in crumbs.
- Step 2
Sweeten the mix to taste with confectioners’ sugar. That could mean 1 cup, but try it as you go.
- Step 3
Spread the mixture into parchment or foil lined 8-by-8-inch pan, but really, any pan will work.
- Step 4
Make the topping: Add chocolate chips and coconut oil to a small pot, and melt the chocolate on the stovetop over low heat, stirring constantly. (Alternatively, add to a microwaveable bowl, and microwave in 20-second bursts, stirring in between each one.)
- Step 5
Spread the melted chocolate over the peanut butter layer. Sprinkle any of the toppings over, and refrigerate until the peanut butter and chocolate layers are set, about 1 hour or so. Cut these into bars or squares with a knife, or use cookie cutters for shapes. (Store in the refrigerator after cutting; they’ll melt in a warm room.)
Private Notes
Comments
Delicious treat! All the joy of peanut butter fudge or buckeye balls but with way less effort. Maybe this was supposed to be obvious, but you should refrigerate the peanut butter mix after you put it in the pan, before you top with chocolate. Let the base firm up. Otherwise it’s so soft that the chocolate sinks and forms a very uneven layer.
I used Rice Krispies as a binder and it turned out delicious and crunchy!
For anyone trying to reduce or sub out the powdered sugar, you may want to incorporate a tablespoon of cornstarch. Cornstarch is a component of powdered sugar and should help with setting the texture of the bottom layer so that it's not too soft/runny.
These are great, the recipe is perfect for me. I usually add about 3/4 cup of powdered sugar and top with crushed pretzels. They never last more than 2 days in my house, so good.
10/10, will definitely make again! I saw the comments about the base being too liquid and too sweet so I used 0.3x sugar, 1.5x Oreo crumbs and also toasted some oats to throw in too - how often is it that making the dessert healthier actually makes it taste better?! Topping wise I put mini marshmallows down before the chocolate and sprinkled chopped pecans over top - will definitely do those again, might also add broken pretzel pieces with the pecans for a saltier crunch
If you want to build this recipe into something more cake-adjacent, I highly recommend making the peanut butter base from this dessert and using it to top fresh-baked brownies. I used Ghirardelli double chocolate brownie mix, pouring half of the batter in, adding some blobs of plain peanut butter, then pouring the rest of the brownie batter. After the brownies cooled for about 15 minutes, I poured the peanut butter mixture over, and let it sit in the fridge a few hours before serving.