Project Thursday: {HALLOWEEN} White Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Every Year we try to include a Sweet Treat in our Neighborhood Boo Bags.

 One of our favorites - that I make way too often - is Home Made Peanut Butter Bars. 

I wanted the Boo Bag Treats to look Halloweenish, so I changed the recipe to make it more colorful.

 

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

INGREDIENTS

20 Halloween Oreo Cookies

1/4 Cup Melted Butter

1   Cup Butter

 1 1/2   Cup Creamy Peanut Butter

2   Cups Graham Cracker Crumbs

2   Cups Confectioners Sugar

1/2   Cup Chocolate Chips

1 1/2   Cup White Chocolate Chips

2   Tablespoons Shortening

DIRECTIONS

1.  Melt 1/4 cup butter in medium bowl.  Crush Oreo Cookies (using a food processor) into small crumbs.  Add to melted butter and stir until well coated. 

2.  Spread cookie crumb mixture onto bottom of 9 X 13 pan and refrigerate until firm.

3.  Melt 1 cup butter and peanut butter in large bowl in microwave - stirring frequently until smooth. 

4.  Add graham cracker crumbs and confectioners sugar to melted mixture and stir until well combined.  Set aside.

5.  Melt chocolate chips in microwave until smooth.

6.  Spread melted chocolate over cookie crust (this helps keep the cookie crumbs together and adhere them to the peanut butter layer).

7.  Spread peanut butter mixture evenly over cookie/chocolate crust and refrigerate until set.

8.  Melt white chocolate chips and shortening in microwave - stirring frequently until smooth.

9.  Spread over peanut butter mixture.

10.  Sprinkle with festive Halloween non-pareils, jimmies or quins.

11.  Refrigerate until firm - at least one hour.  Cut into squares.

I was very excited to use Halloween Oreo cookies for the crust.  I expected it to look like black and orange speckles once they were crushed.

 That's not exactly how it turned out.  They ended up looking plain black once they were mixed together, but it still worked fine. 

 When you are mixing together the sugar, peanut butter, graham crumbs and butter - it seems like the mixture will never combine - just keep working.

It all comes together and magically looks exactly like the inside of a Peanut Butter Cup.  Even the strange texture of the graham crackers is perfect.  Not too smooth, not too course.  Delicious.

Melting chocolate (white or milk) can be a bit tricky in the microwave.  Be sure not to over cook (or it will turn chalky).  I usually stop and stir every 30 seconds.  It will look like they are not melting (because they still hold their shape), but as soon as you stir the chips, they collapse into liquid.

If you feel more comfortable - the double boiler method is always an option.

 

Once the treats were cut into squares - they were packed into cute Halloween Tins.  

Plus a few were kept at home for us to snack on.  

Thanks for reading along,