The combination chocolate and peanut butter is not a new concept. Since the mid-1920s, people have been enjoying the indulgent (but oh so delicious) Reese’s peanut butter cups.

These were a creation inspired the flavours of the famous peanut butter cups — my first baked good recipe made up entirely by myself. It must be said, that I was partly motivated by the sizeable bag of biscuits that my brother had brought home from work. He is a stock boy at a bulk food store, and since the majority of the cookies were broken, his manager was planning on throwing them away. I think he had me in mind when he salvaged the bag of cookies.

So, equipped with a bag of mostly broken biscuits and a craving for chocolate and peanut butter, I came up with these: Krissy’s Chocolate and Peanut Butter Squares.

The bars themselves are quite simple. They have a no-bake crust made of crushed cookies, cocoa, sugar, and butter, which is slathered with a peanut butter icing. To top it off, melted chocolate is drizzled on top for a nice crisscrossed (or should I say starcrossed) effect.

I found that the peanut butter icing was fluffier than I expected it to be, perhaps as a result of beating it with my electric mixer. If I make these again, I might try reserving some cookie crumbs and mixing them in with the peanut butter icing to see how that effects the texture.

Anyways, enjoy my first original recipe!
Krissy’s Chocolate and Peanut Butter Squares

Ingredients

2 cup cookie crumbs
2 T cocoa powder
3 T sugar
½ cup melted butter

1 ½ cup peanut butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 t vanilla

2 oz chocolate, melted

Line a 8″ square baking pan with aluminum foil. Using a food processor, add the cookie pieces and blitz them until they are only crumbs. In a midsized bowl, combine cookie crumbs, cocoa, and sugar and stir until ingredients are evenly mixed. Add melted butter and stir until well combined and all of the crumbs are moistened.

Press the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Place in the fridge until needed.

In another bowl, beat together peanut butter, icing sugar and vanilla. Spread on top of crumb base.

Melt chocolate in microwave, using 20 second intervals. At the end of each interval, take the bowl out and give the chocolate a good mix. When the chocolate is melted, drizzle it over the top of the peanut butter icing.

Place chocolate peanut butter squares in fridge for at least 30 minutes or until you are ready to enjoy your chocolate and peanut buttery treat!

Makes 16 servings