No-Oven Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

It’s SUMMER! The season of sandals, cold watermelon, sunscreen and no desire to turn the oven on! We all still need our chocolate fix though. What could be better than a no-oven needed chocolate peanut butter bar? Well, maybe 3-4 more on your plate.

Topping:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup peanut butter

Base:

2 sticks butter, softened

1 cup peanut butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 12-oz box vanilla wafer cookies

1 12-oz bag of mini chocolate chips

½ cups chopped peanuts (low-salt)

For the topping: in a medium size bowl, microwave, melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter. Stir until smooth. Set aside.

For the bars: Grease a 9-by-13-inch pan with cooking spray. Using a mixer, mix together the base ingredients, the butter and peanut butter until smooth. Stir in the powdered sugar a cup at a time. Mix well.

Add the vanilla wafers to a food processor and process until they are in crumbs. If you don’t have a processes, then pour into a gallon size zip lock bag, seal and smash away with a rolling pin. Add the crumbs and mini chocolate chips to the peanut butter/butter/sugar mixture and mix until just combined. Spread it firmly into the pan and get ready for chocolate happiness!

Pour the topping over the base. Spread it out evenly and sprinkle over the chopped peanuts. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, then cut into 24 bars. Store in the fridge.

Note: can be made GF, just pick up the vanilla wafers that are Gluten-free.