Frosted Crispy Peanut Butter Bars
With a little adult supervision, young chefs can stir up a batch of these crispy, peanutty bars with a super easy-to-make butterscotch and chocolate frosting.
Recipe Ingredients:
Crispy Peanut Butter Bars:
light olive oil cooking spray or butter
1 1/2 cups (10 ounces) smooth peanut butter, or 1 3/4 cups (12 ounces) crunchy-style peanut butter
6 cups crisp rice cereal
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Frosting:
1 cup butterscotch or peanut butter flavored chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Cooking Directions:
- For Crispy Peanut Butter Bars: Lightly grease a 13x9x2-inch baking dish with cooking spray or butter; set aside.
- Separately measure out the peanut butter and rice cereal; set aside.
- In a 3 to 4-quart large saucepan combine the sugar, corn syrup and butter; bring to a rolling boil over medium heat and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
- Working quickly, add the peanut butter and vanilla, mixing well. Add the rice cereal, stirring until well coated. Spoon mixture into greased pan, pressing down evenly*.
- For Frosting: Melt the butterscotch, or peanut butter chips, and chocolate chips together in a glass measure on HIGH in microwave for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, stirring mixture after the first minute (be careful not to scorch as the chips will retain their shape even though they are melted until they are stirred); spread evenly over bars. Allow frosting to cool completely before cutting into bars.
Makes 24 bars.
*Tip: Place a sheet of plastic wrap or waxed paper on top of mixture, then press down to spread mixture evenly and smoothly with fingertips. (Use caution, as the mixture will still be quite warm).
Variation: Omit the frosting and quickly stir in 1 cup desired flavor of chocolate chips (semisweet, milk or white chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, etc.) after mixing in the rice cereal in step 4.
Nutritional Information Per Serving (1/24 of recipe using 1 1/2 cups peanut butter): 265.8 calories; 36% calories from fat; 11.5g total fat; 3.2mg cholesterol; 152.6mg sodium; 112.8mg potassium; 39.8g carbohydrates; 1.5g fiber; 21.4g sugar; 38.3g net carbs; 4.8g protein.
Recipe and photograph by Hope Cantil; copyright © 1999; property of CooksRecipes.com. See Terms of Use.