Holiday Crunchy Peanut Bars

Print Recipe

Adapted from The Pastry Chef’s Baking

I wanted some kind of peanut cookie for my 25 Days of Christmas recipes and decided to search for recipes.  I could have used the old standby’s, but I wanted to try something new.  So with ideas in hand, and Google at my finger tips I began.  I found many kinds of cookies, and brittles, but then I thought about a bar cookie and wah-lah, I found this one in a slightly different format.  I had some mini M&M’s that I wanted to use to give it some Christmas color so I made some changes and here’s my finished product.   It passed the “Michael” test, which means the plate was empty of what I gave him, but no response.  It’s like pulling teeth to get a critique out of him.  So I just go with the how many is left on the plate rating.  Since it was empty, I believe I can say they were great.  Give them a try and let me know what y’all think.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 1 ½ cups AP flour
• 1 cup chopped dry-roasted peanuts
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, melted
• 1 (14-ounce) sweetened condensed milk
• ½ cup peanut butter
• 1/2 bag of mini M&M’s or chocolate chips.

1. Preheat oven to 375?F.

2. In large bowl, combine oats, flour, peanuts, sugar, baking soda and salt; stir in butter until crumbly.  Then reserving 1 ½ cups crumb mixture, press remainder on bottom of greased 9×13 cake pan.  Bake 12 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, in small mixer bowl, beat sweetened condensed milk with peanut butter until smooth; spread evenly over prepared crust to within ¼” of the edge.  In medium bowl, combine reserved crumb mixture mini M&M’s.

4. Sprinkle evenly over peanut butter mixture; press down firmly.

5. Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool.  Cut into bars.  Store loosely covered at room temperature.