Lunchlady Peanut Butter Bars

I never really expected this, but telling people I was going to try this recipe spurred quite a few conversations about school lunches. Apparently, people really like to talk about what their schools served for lunch! So, if you ever want to know what your neighbor's school did, just let them know you're bringing "lunchlady peanut butter bars" to the block party. ;)

The pin I found took me here.

At first I thought "Meh. That's a lot of ingredients." Then, I looked again and came to my senses.

1. I love peanut butter.
2. I had leftover butterscotch chips from making no-bake cookies that needed to be used.
3. All of the ingredients are things you usually just have around the house already.

So it was game on.


What You Need: 

Bars:
3/4 C Butter, softened
3/4 C Creamy Peanut Butter
3/4 C Sugar
3/4 C Brown Sugar, packed
2 Eggs
2 tsp Water
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 C All-purpose Flour
1 1/2 C Quick Oats
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt

Glaze:
1 1/4 C Milk Chocolate Chips
1/2 C Butterscotch Chips
1/2 C Creamy Peanut Butter

What You Do:

Bars:
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine the flour, quick oats, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the water and vanilla.
5. Once the water and vanilla are completely incorporated, add in the flour mixture a little at a time.
6. Spread into a greased 15"x10"x1" baking pan.
7. Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Glaze:
1. Combine all ingredients and melt, either in a double boiler or a microwave.
2. Stir until smooth.
3. Pour over warm bars and spread evenly.
4. Cool completely before cutting.


My Experience:

Sometimes, I make designs with my ingredients.

Baking the bars. I know these through-the-oven-door shots are dodgy... but really that's when the anticipation and excitement is at its best! 

Making the glaze

The finished bars!

Yummm

Noteworthy things:

1. The original recipe said it yielded 4 dozen bars. I didn't even bother trying to figure out how to get 48 bars out of a 10"x15" pan and have the servings look something other than bite-size. I just cut what I wanted to eat. We had a very, very, far cry from 4 dozen. But I didn't care. Perhaps for a party you'd want to cut them that small so they'd last longer on a platter?

2. These keep pretty well, as long as they're in an air-tight container. There's only two of us here, so we were eating bars a week after I made them. They were still delicious!

3. You could probably get away with using crunchy peanut butter instead of creamy... but I wouldn't. I really like the texture of the oats in these bars, and I think the crunch would override that aspect of the dessert. But really, to each his own. If you like the crunch, go for it!

4. My pan wasn't an inch tall. I just used a cookie sheet that was pretty close to 15x10 and called it good. I was a little nervous when I looked in the oven and saw it rising WAY up there, but it turned out alright.