These Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar cookies have been one of my go-to Christmas cookie recipes for many years and the best thing about them (aside from how easy they are) is that they are perfect at any time of the year–not just at Christmas!

In fact, anyone who attended my “May the Fourth” Star Wars class this year may recognize these as “Light Side Blondies” aka BB-8 Bars.

Speaking of themed classes 😉 I made these cookies (Cookie, blondie … blondie, cookie–you be the judge! Ultimately, I think they are too dense to be a blondie.) for my Polar Express yoga class this past Monday and have since had a number of requests for the recipe. So, here we are!

As I mentioned above, this recipe is super duper simple which makes it perfect for when you need to toss something together last minute to please a crowd. As long as your crowd isn’t gluten, egg, sugar, and peanut-free, you should be golden. Ha ha!

Yield: 24

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar Cookies

Print

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Additional Time 10 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup (each) of semi-sweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and white chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F and prepare an 8x8 inch square pan with two pieces of parchment for easy removal of bar cookies after baking.
2. Stir together melted butter and brown sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add flour and salt and mix until combined.
3. Stir in chocolate, peanut butter and white chocolate chips.
4. Spread batter into the parchment-lined pan
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
6. Score cookies while still warm then allow to cool completely before removing from pan.
7. Enjoy!

Notes

This recipe can easily be doubled to make a larger batch using a 15.5x10.5 pan.

If making these as "BB-8 Bars" sub the peanut butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips for 2/3 cup mini Reese's Pieces for the BB-8 orange 😀

In the recipe, I mention using two sheets of parchment paper in the pan. For those who may not bake a lot, I wanted to explain that step a bit further. You will cut two sheets of parchment paper the width of your pan. Then you insert one of the pieces going top to bottom and sit the second sheet on top running right to left. (picture a plus sign) This allows the pan to be covered not only on the bottom, but also on all four sides so you won’t have to dig the bars out of the pan. It also makes clean-up a breeze!

After you take them out of the oven, use a toothpick to check and see if they are done. Bear in mind, they will be extremely soft straight out of the oven. So much so, that you may question whether or not they are done. If your toothpick is clean (aside from some melted chocolate) they are done and just need to cool in order to firm up.

I suggest taking a sharp knife to cut your squares at this point, while they are still warm, because the knife will easily cut through all the chocolate chips. Then when they are cool, you can easily pick the whole batch up out of the pan using the parchment paper and break them into pieces.

The real problem with these is not the baking of them, it’s the not-eating-all-of-them.  So they are definitely best utilized when going to a gathering. That way you don’t have to be a responsible adult who doesn’t eat the entire batch yourself! (Oh yes! I have your back.)

Enjoy! If you make a batch, let me know if you like them!