No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

They're chocolate.  They're peanut butter.  They're pretzels.

They're salty.  They're sweet.  They're crunchy.

They're No-Bake.  They're easy.  They're....perfect.



My Gramma turns 88 today and I made these as the dessert for my birthday lunch for her.  To sit there, sharing stories and enjoying seconds and thirds with her, you realize that you're never too old to have chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels in your dessert.


Cheers to you Gramma, and to the joys of sharing every simple & sweet morsel in life with those you love.

No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

Ingredients
Nonstick cooking spray
2 cups creamy or crunchy peanut butter, divided
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, divided
4 cups (roughly ½-inch pieces), broken small pretzel twists or sticks, divided
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided

Directions
LINE 13 x 9-inch baking pan with foil leaving an overhang on two sides. Lightly spray foil with nonstick cooking spray.

BEAT 1 1/4 cups peanut butter and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in 1 cuppowdered sugar. Stir in remaining 1 cup powdered sugar, 3 cups pretzel pieces and 1/2 cup morsels. Press evenly into prepared baking pan. Smooth top with spatula.

MICROWAVE remaining 1 1/2 cups morsels and 3/4 cup peanut butter in medium, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on MEDIUM-HIGH (70%) power for 45 seconds; STIR. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring just until morsels are melted. Spread chocolate layer evenly over powdered sugar mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining pretzel pieces, pressing down lightly. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until firm. Lift from pan; peel off foil. Cut into 60 pieces. Store in covered container in refrigerator.
Or...put them in the freezer when you're done.  You wont be sorry.

Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Woah.  There are a lot of things going on here to absorb.  Let's list them:

1) I'm posting a recipe on OUAP.  It's been a while.  Too long, I say.  WithTwoForks has been at the forefront for a long time, and rightfully so, but it's time to give some love to Once Upon a Plate.  After all this is where it all began, you know.

2) I'm back, in the US, in my kitchen.  Reunited with all of my kitchen tools.  My knife, Spartacus, and I have been dicing onions and slicing carrots just because we can.  Dont even get me started on being with my food processor again.  It's like a family reunion, but I'm the only one talking, and the food is always delicious.

3) Can we talk about the title of this recipe alone?  There are a lot of words.  Loaded words.  Bacon. Peanut Butter.  Chocolate Chips. Cookies.  Individually, each word pings a certain part of your brain that makes it scream "Holy crap YES!"  But now, strung all together, in one cohesive title?  Describing one recipe in which they are all involved?  The world may explode.  "Exceeded Limit of Awesomeness" will read on the headlines.

But, before any armageddon, let's eat these cookies together.

It's not like I have to sell the ingredients in this cookie.  If you don't like bacon, peanut butter, chocolate chips, or cookies, I'm not sure if we should be friends anyway.  All together, these culinary mavens create a decadent sweet/salty/savory/crunch/chew symphony in your mouth that no one should shy away from.

And did I mention that the recipe is silly-easy and is in fact gluten free?  Not that that matters.  All cautions should be checked at the door anyway when taking on these cookies.

Ride that edge of should-this-be-breakfast-or-dessert.  Do not be afraid to eat bacon from a cookie vehicle.  Pour a glass of milk, strap on your seatbelt, and embrace the journey.


Now I'll leave you with the recipe and a nice shot of the Boston Skyline and the Bacon Cookies simultaneously admiring each other.



Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Note: I also sprinkled some chili powder and cracked black pepper onto my bacon strips to add some smokey/peppery sass to the cookies.  Next time I may try some cayenne/maple action.  The explorations are endless...
There's bacon in your cookies people! Go wild! The sky's the limit!

Adapted from Joy the Baker.

Ingredients 

1 cup all-natural chunky or smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
about 6 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and diced

1/3 cup chocolate chips

In a skillet over medium high heat, fry up bacon until cooked through and let cool on paper towels until cool enough to dice. Dice up and set aside. (See Note above for additional flavor ideas)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. In a mixer combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. Fold in cooked bacon and chocolate chips.

Roll dough into large walnut sized balls and create a cris-cross pattern with a fork. If you’d like, roll the dough balls in granulated sugar before making the cris-cross pattern (I recommend the sugar roll). Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for five minutes.  Consume with mind-blown friends. 

Rice Hippie Treats

I confess, I have an inner hippie.  I mean, I lived in Vermont for four years, what can you expect?  She loves to frolic around in nature, talk to plants, and, such as in this case, likes to put a twist on certain recipes to make them a little more mind/body/soul friendly.


She surfaced recently when I wanted to make Rice Crispie Treats for a potluck dinner.  I knew I had everything to make a batch at home minus the marshmallows; a pivotal ingredient in this childhood treat.  But in both an effort to avoid the store and to improvise, I started thinking about how I could recreate this treat without including the highly processed white puff of an ingredient.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good toasted marshmallow, s'more, or old-fashioned Crispie Treat.  But if we can avoid ingesting things like, say, tetrasodium pyrophosphate when we don't have to, why not see if something else could do the trick as well?


I had been planning to make a peanut butter version of the treats anyway, so I started with that as a base of the binding ingredients to hold these bars together.  To keep with the theme, I used natural peanut butter which contains only ground up peanuts and salt.  Honey came in next, and some butter to pull all of the ingredients together.  For the dry ingredients, I substituted part of the rice crispies with rolled oats, and added dried cranberries for a contrasting tart/sweet taste, and chocolate chips too because, well, who doesn't like the combo of chocolate and peanut butter?  


I had created an almost granola-ish cousin of the Rice Crispie Treat, with all honest ingredients that we can all pronounce and recognize.  My inner hippie was proud.  And you will be too regardless if you have your own inner hippie or not, since at the end of it all these bars are just plain simple, delicious, and worth making no matter what.




Rice Hippie Treats  
My favorite way to eat these is a little cold right from the fridge. Mmmm


Ingredients

4 cups rice crispie cereal

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup dried cranberries 

1/2 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
3 tablespoons unsalted butter


Method
Butter a 9x13 baking dish or spray with nonstick cooking spray.  Combine rice cripsies, oats, cranberries, and chocolate chips in a medium bowl.  Set aside.  


Combine the peanut butter, honey, and butter in a sauce pan over medium heat.  Stir until all is melted and combined.


Pour peanut butter mixture over rice crispie mixture and stir to evenly coat the dry ingredients.  Pour mixture into the prepared pan and pat down evenly with a buttered or non-stick sprayed spatula (or else the treats will stick and the spreading will not be fun).  


Store bars in the fridge to set.  Cut into squares and enjoy.  In your Birkenstocks.