We had a few rainy days in Cleveland last week, and B was busy, which meant that I was trying to find ways to entertain 3 (!) kids inside our house. One of the things that we all love to do – well, except for GM, but we’ll find out about that soon enough! – is bake. And luckily, I’d been dreaming up these bars for a while, so when we had one rainy day and I asked the kids if they wanted to bake (and they said yes!), I knew exactly what we’d make.

I love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. Especially when there’s not TOO much chocolate involved. Which is probably why I love Reese’s peanut butter cups and pieces. Thus, this recipe.

This recipe uses my standard blondie recipe, plus a few additional add-ins to make it perfect for peanut butter lovers! If you wanted to use a peanut butter cookie base, you could make this EXTRA peanut buttery! But this is perfect if you want a chocolate chip cookie with some added peanut butter candy.

Peanut Butter Lovers Blondies

Here’s what you need:

• 1 c unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 c granulated sugar
• 3/4 c packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups of mix-ins — I like to do 1/2 cup peanut butter chips, 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1 cup Reese’s Pieces. You could also do chopped up peanut butter cups!
• 15 full-sized peanut butter cups 
• Optional: an additional 1/3 cup Reese’s pieces
• Optional: melted chocolate and peanut butter candy for drizzling over the top

Here’s what you do:

• Preheat the oven to 375. Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper (alternatively, you could also just spray with a nonstick spray or grease with butter).
• In a larger mixing bowl, cream together sugars and butter until well-blended.
• Add in eggs and vanilla, and mix well.
• Slowly add in the remaining dry ingredients – the flour, baking soda and salt. Don’t overmix, blend until just mixed together.
• Add in your mix-ins! For me this included the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and Reese’s Pieces. 
• Spread into prepared pan. 
• Top with 15 peanut butter cups. I like to spread them evenly across the pan, horizontally in 3 rows of 5, so each cookie has one peanut butter cup (see photo).
• Sprinkle with 1/3 cup Reese’s pieces in between peanut butter cups.
• Bake for 23-27 minutes until top is golden brown and a toothpick into the bars comes out clean.
• Optional: drizzle with melted chocolate and peanut butter candy (I melted some leftover peanut butter baking chips with peanut butter in the microwave and drizzled that)
• Cool completely and cut into 15 bars. Enjoy!