Marsha's Peanut Butter Chocolate Dream Bars

I needed to take a dessert to a friend's house this last weekend and I was told that they like chocolate and peanut butter. I also LOVE that combination and so I decided to take two yummy recipes and make my own version of something "dreamy." It was a HUGE hit! So, here is my version of a peanut butter dream bar. I am not great at taking pretty pictures of food with my camera, but I did snap this picture so you could see what the bars look like. Enjoy!

Marsha's Peanut Butter Chocolate Dream Bars

Base:

1 1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Fudge Layer:

1 jar hot fudge topping

Peanut Butter Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

2/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Topping:

chocolate chips

peanut butter chips

crushed peanut butter sandwich cookies, large-ish pieces

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of 9x13 pan with baking spray. In a large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter, peanut butter, vanilla and eggs with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon, until well blended. Stir in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir peanut butter chips and chocolate chips into batter. Spread in pan. Bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely, about 1 ½ hours.

Next, heat hot fudge topping up in microwave oven until spreadable. Spread evenly over top of cool cookie bars. Then, mix together the peanut butter frosting ingredients and spread evenly over the hot fudge.

OR...

Do the frosting first and drizzle the fudge over the frosting. Either way works, so pick which is easiest or more appealing to you.

Finally, sprinkle top of bars with extra chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and crushed peanut butter sandwich cookies until you reach your desired effect.

*After making these once and putting the fudge first and the frosting last, I kind of decided that it was pretty hard to spread the frosting over the slippery fudge and I will probably put the frosting on first next time because the fudge can be easily poured over the top of the frosting.