Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Bars

When we visited Maui this last January, one of my favourite things to do (believe it or not) is to scour the grocery stores for products that we don’t get here in Canada. I was thrilled to see that they had my very favourite chocolate bar in a spreadable form! I brought back home two jars of Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Spread — one for me, and one for my Reese’s-loving sister in law Laura. Spreads aren’t always what they seem, but if you love Reese Peanut Butter Cups, they NAILED this spread. It tastes like a pureed Reese Peanut Butter Cup in a jar and it is completely acceptable to eat it right out of the jar on a spoon, in my opinion.

Fast forward to this fall when I find out Reese is bringing this product to Canada! Hooray! I was also given the opportunity to create a recipe using said spread, so I was thrilled. I came up with a cookie bar, and they did not disappoint!

You will need:

• 1 cup salted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup sugar
• ¾ cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• ½ – 1 cup Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Spread, divided

Preheat oven to 350° and grease a 9×9 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. In a stand mixer, cream butter and then add both sugars and beat until creamy. Next, add the vanilla and beat until combined. Slowly add the flour into the butter mixture stirring on low speed until dough is combined; may be a bit crumbly still.

Press just under 1/2 of the dough evenly into the pan for the crust, about ½” thickness. Place remaining dough in refrigerator, covered.

Bake crust until firm and the edges are a pale golden brown approximately 20 minutes or more. Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool about 15 minutes.

Spread Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Spread evenly over crust, about ¼ inch away from the edge of the crust. I stated ½ cup – 1 cup in the ingredients, because it’s to your taste. I initially did ½ cup and I felt it wasn’t quite enough, so I’d add more next time and save a bit to garnish the finished product!

Remove remaining dough from refrigerator and crumble dough on top of Reese layer. If it seems like you have more than enough cookie crumble on top, don’t feel like you have to add it all, it’s okay to have some left over. Finish baking 30 – 40 minutes until top is set and lightly golden.

Cool slightly and while the bars are cooling, warm up some remaining Reese’s spread (or get some more from the jar!) on the stove top in a saucepan until it has a more liquid consistency; or in 30 second increments in microwave, stirring after every increment. Take warmed up spread and drizzle over squares. This caramel sauce would pair very nicely with these squares and/or some vanilla ice cream. These bars are best served warm.

Don’t feel bad about indulging on these bars when they’re fresh. They do get quite hard by the next day, but a quick reheat in the microwave will fix that problem. I found that no matter how I adjusted the cookie recipe, I always had a bit too much, you might not want to use all of it on top if it looks too thick, and that’s okay!

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Hershey’s Canada and I have been compensated monetarily and with product. All opinions are my own.