Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cookie Bars

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cookie Bars recipe

photo by:kraft

With flavor just like Grandma's chocolate-peanut butter cookies, these cookie bars start with a cake mix, making prep a breeze.

time

prep:

15 min

total:

5 hr 40 min

servings

total:

32 servings

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What You Need

pkg. (2-layer size) chocolate cake mix

pkg. (3.9 oz.) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding

1/2

cup butter, melted

1/2

cup milk

1-1/2

pkg. (4 oz. each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate (6 oz.), chopped, divided

cup PLANTERS Dry Roasted Peanuts, divided

cup PLANTERS Creamy Peanut Butter

Make It

HEAT oven to 350ºF.

LINE 13x9-inch pan with foil; spray with cooking spray. Beat first 4 ingredients with mixer until well blended. (Dough will be thick.) Press half onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake 10 min.

SPRINKLE half each of the chopped chocolate and nuts over crust. Microwave peanut butter in small microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1 min., stirring after 30 sec.; spread over nuts.

ROLL remaining dough into 13x9-inch rectangle between 2 sheets of waxed paper. Peel back top layer of waxed paper; flip dough onto top of dessert. Remove remaining waxed paper. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate and nuts; press gently into dough with spatula.

BAKE 15 min. Cool 1 hour. Refrigerate 4 hours before cutting into bars.

Kraft Kitchens Tips

Size-Wise

Enjoy your favorite treats on occasion but remember to keep tabs on portions.

Note from the KRAFT Kitchens

We appreciate your comments and changed our method. To create nice even layers, microwave the peanut butter and roll out the top layer of dough as directed. Thank you for all of your helpful suggestions!

Make Ahead

Make these bars a day ahead. Then, just cut them, put them on a serving platter and you're ready to go!

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linz2005

posted:9/3/2009

Where to begin? As with most recipes Ive ran into with Kraft, the pan size always seems to big...like there is not enough product to fill the pan. The peanut butter was sooo hard to layer on, this dish needs cooled first otherwise it just smears the bottom and the peanut butter wont spread. I recommend using an 8x8 pan. I would leave out the peanuts too. Didn't taste good in it. Leave it in the fridge for more than an hour. I left it in for 3 hours and it still wouldn't cut right. It was like a gooey mess you have to eat with a spoon.

arsh2

posted:9/3/2009

It is okay, not great because it doesn't taste sweet but very dull. It also dries that came from peanut butter which it is little bit hard to to shallow. I wouldn't make it again next time.

MDC683

posted:9/2/2009

I do agree that this was a difficult recipe that I was taking to friends and wish I'd done a test run of this recipe first. But the end result, although not much to look at, was DELICIOUS. I substituted Reese's Peanut Butter Chips for the peanuts. Next time I'd probably make the first layer thinner to save some for the top layer. I'd also roll out the top layer and then attempt to place it on top of the peanut butter layer. All around crowd pleasing recipe that everyone found tasty!

AllieDuke

posted:9/2/2009

As most people have said so far, this recipe is not as easy as it looks. The chocolate cake mixture is very thick and difficult to spread, especially the 2nd layer of it. The bars were hard to cut after refrigerating overnight. Also, I thought they were way too sweet. If you like peanut butter and chocolate, try the "No Oven Peanut Butter Squares." They taste just like peanut butter cups!

wdwtena

posted:9/1/2009

Very rich! I could only eat a small piece at a time. Looked easy to make but found it a bit difficult. I agree with the other comments - the 1st layer needs to be cooled before trying to spread the PB over it. And I think it would help if the PB was warm so it would spread easier. By the time I got to the 3rd layer, I was just smooshing it around in dollops instead of "spreading" it. The bottom layer wasn't quite done in 10 min and even after the add'l 15 min it was still gooey - some of my testers liked that gooey-ness and some didn't. Probably won't make this again.

ladams75

posted:8/31/2009

I thought this recipe was a bit bitter. I made vanilla frosting for it to help sweeten it up a bit. Good idea of melting the peanut butter before trying to spread it. I will try to make it again but with adding 10x sugar to the peanut butter and using vanilla pudding instead of chocolate amd melting the choclate to drizzle over the top.

sgassman

posted:8/31/2009

I only eat sweets once a week and this was my weekly treat. What a HUGE disappointment. It looked just like the picture but didn't have much good flavor. My husband thought the exact same thing. I ended up throwing them away. The ingredients just don't work that well together.

ginahannah

posted:8/31/2009

I was not disappointed. They do taste great; however, mine did not look like the picture. It was hard to spread the 2nd and 3rd layers. Everything somewhat melted together. I know they were gone at work in less than 1 hour!!

katek4

posted:8/30/2009

I was so disappointed by this recipe. It didn't turn out like the picture at all. Like another review said, make sure you cool the fist layer before adding the peanut butter. I didn't do this and the PB melted and made spreading the top layer a huge mess. The recipe calls for refrigerating the bars, but I did not. To me, a cookie shouldn't be cold. Overall, I am a HUGE Kraft fan and have found all of the recipes I've tried to be easy and taste really good. This one, however, has been the worst and I will not be making it again.

Wilenelucky13

posted:8/29/2009

please whatever you do after you bake the first layer cool it down, if you dont the peanut butter will melt and make it VERY difficult if not impossible to spread the rest of the cake mixture on top i put dollops around on top of the peanut butter and smooshed it into it :)