Triple Peanut Butter Blondies

The more peanut butter the better, right?

I’ve made thick peanut butter blondies and I’ve made peanut butter blondies with chocolate candies. Both of them are amazing, but these triple peanut butter ones are my favorite, by far. Yup, I said triple.

All three recipes start with the same peanut butter blondie base. Do you know what that means? I’ve got a good thing going here. However, each recipe has its own twist. The blondie base is so versatile. I mean, hello, it’s a chewy peanut butter cookie in a bar form. Nothing about that sucks.

These blondies are loaded with peanut butter. Really, really, loaded. You’ve got creamy peanut butter, peanut butter chips, and peanut butter candies (aka Reese’s pieces candies). I don’t think I could have added any more peanut butter to these. Oh wait, I could have added peanut butter cups, buuuuut I really wanted the peanut butter to shine here. In other words I did not want any chocolate in these bars. Am I feeling alright? I know it sounds weird, but having made things a lot like these that had chocolate in them, the general consensus is that the chocolate actually takes away from the peanut flavor. Everyone’s best theory is that chocolate is such a strong flavor that it tends to bury the delicate peanut butter flavor. Still, since I love chocolate, maybe I’ll add chocolate next time and “ruin” them. Or, maybe I’ll come up with some other form of peanut butter to add. 😉

Triple Peanut Butter Blondies Recipe
(Makes 24 bars)

Ingredients:

2/3 cup butter (roughly 1 stick and 3 tablespoons)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (equivalent to 7.4 ounces)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup milk (I used 1% milk, but any kind of milk will work.)
3/4 cup peanut butter chips
3/4 cup Reese’s pieces candies (I bought a 10.5 ounces bag because I might I’d eat some along the way.)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Grease a 13 x 9 baking pan and set it aside. I like to lay parchment paper or tin foil into the baking pan so that it’s easy to take out for pictures but it’s not required.)
In a large bowl, cream the butter, dark brown sugar, white sugar, and peanut butter.
Mix in the eggs, 1 egg at a time, and the vanilla extract. Set the wet ingredients aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.
Stir half of the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients.
Stir in the milk.
Stir in the remaining half of the dry ingredients.
Gently stir in the peanut butter chips and Reese’s pieces. (I saved a few Reese’s pieces to add on top after they came out of the oven but that’s for the pretty factor and purely optional.)
Move the batter into the prepared baking pan and spread it evenly.
Bake it for about 30 to 35 minutes or until a tester inserted comes out clean. (It took me 33 minutes.)
Let it cool before cutting into it. (No seriously, this is a hard rule to follow, but hot peanut butter turns into a disaster if you don’t wait.)