That’s Nuts!
February 10, 2010
Tomorrow at work we’ve got a charity bake/candy/craft sale. Anyone who wants to can bring in items to donate, and then the entire floor can buy whatever piques their interest. All proceeds go to the American Heart Association. Yeah, I know, a little odd to promote cookies and candy to support healthy hearts, but I just viewed it as another opportunity to bake.
I pulled out my newest friend, Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookies & Bars, and began to browse. Almost immediately (pg. 14, to be exact), I found exactly what I was looking for – Salted Peanut Chews. Not too complicated, and hopefully a little different from the brownies and cookies that are bound to be there. These were easy to make, although it was a little messy spreading the peanut mixture on top of the hot marshmallows. When it all cooled, however, it looked perfect.
As part of my *ahem* ‘quality control program’ when making a recipe for the first time, I totally nabbed a piece to try. WOW. Completely amazing, don’t change a thing. It had some crispy crunchy, and some ooey gooey, some sweet and some salty. If a Payday bar and a Fluffernutter sandwich had an illegitimate love child, it would taste exactly like this. Yum.
SALTED PEANUT CHEWS
(BASE)
1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg yolks
3 cups miniature marshmallows
(TOPPING)
2/3 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 bag (10 ounces) peanut butter chips
2 cups crisp rice cereal
2 cups salted peanuts
- Heat oven to 350F. Beat all base ingredients except marshmallows with mixer on low-speed until crumbly. Press mixture firmly in bottom of an ungreased 9×13 pan.
- Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until light golden brown.
- Immediately sprinkle marshmallows evenly over base; bake 2-3 minutes longer until marshmallows just begin to puff. Coll while preparing topping.
- In 3-quart saucepan, mix all topping ingredients except cereal and peanuts. Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until chips are just melted and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and stir in cereal and peanuts. Spoon warm topping over marshmallows and spread to cover.
- Refrigerate until smooth, about 45 minutes. Cut into bars (we made 12 enormous ones for the bake sale, the recipe says makes 36, I’d probably go with 24 next time)
loveysoven 
While I can not speak for everyone here at work, some of us have hearts that would love to purchase salty peanut chews. May I attend your bake sale? Please?
Sounds yummy, sweet pea….can’t wait to see the next one!
OMG…got a sample today..sooooooooo rich…better go with 36 servings for non-bake sale batches….I couldn’t even finish it in one sitting! And they should have charged a buck apiece for these, easily!
If a payday bar and a fluffernutter sandwich had an illegitimate love child, I would kidnap it and make it love me as its own.