Triple Peanut Butter Monster Cookie Bars – Soft, gooey bars loaded with M&Ms, chocolate and made for serious peanut butter lovers! So good!
I make my fair share of treats, and have the hodgepodge of random add-ins in my pantry to show for it.
Half-used bags of chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and a random assortment of candy were taking over the cupboard so I found a home for them.
In these bars.
They’re the perfect bar to toss in everything but the kitchen sink.
Use this flexible and forgiving dough base as your opportunity to stir almost anything that’s plaguing your pantry into it.
What else are you going to do with 1/3 cup chocolate-covered sunflower seeds from your last Trader Joe’s impulse buy or that small handful of butterscotch chips from your last batch of cookies, or a few stray marshmallows.
Use up last year’s Halloween candy or Easter candy. Those Fun-Size Twix bars are begging to be diced and tossed in. Don’t pretend you don’t discover random candy from months ago. Well, I do. Life of a food blogger.
The bars come together in 5 minutes in one bowl, no mixer needed. Unlike making cookies, there’s no dough to chill, and they’re ready in under 30 minutes from start to finish.
I used my go-to blondie base, with a half-cup peanut butter stirred in, before stirring in the kitchen sink.
I had partially used bags of Peanut Butter M&M’s, peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, toffee bits, and included them all.
Because peanut butter is used three times – peanut butter that’s stirred into the dough, Peanut Butter M&Ms, and peanut butter chips – they pack a bold, peanut buttery punch.
They’re very moist and soft. The edges turn slightly chewy, while the interior remains a squishy, soft heaven.
The crunchy candy coating of the M&Ms and their firmness, coupled with Heath toffee bits, are the perfect texture contrast to the buttery, peanut buttery, dense, melt-in-your mouth dough.
There’s plenty of chocolate, too. Chocolate and peanut butter just go together. The abundance of melted chocolate chips is practically mandatory with all that peanut butter.
Soft, chewy, fast, easy, peanut butter used three times, and you can clean out your cupboards. That’s success.
And let’s face it, any time you can bake candy into a dessert, you won’t hear too many complaints.
Cleaning out your pantry never tasted so good.
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Triple Peanut Butter Monster Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick, melted
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- heaping 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter, use Jif, Skippy, etc.; don’t use homemade or natural – too runny
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup Peanut Butter M&Ms
- ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks, or a combination
- ½ cup Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips
- â…“ cup Heath Bar Toffee Bits
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8-by-8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, spray with cooking spray; set aside.
- In a large, microwave-safe bowl melt the butter, about 1 minute on high power.
- Wait momentarily before adding the egg so you don’t scramble it. Add the egg, brown sugar, vanilla, and whisk until smooth.
- Add the peanut butter and whisk or stir until smooth and incorporated.
- Add the flour and stir until just combined, don’t overmix.
- Add all remaining add-ins and fold to incorporate.
- Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula. I like to strategically place a few M&Ms on the top of the batter for a nice visual effect.
- Bake for about 25 minutes, or until top is set. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter. Allow bars to cool in pan for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving. Bars will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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What’s the last pantry cleanout recipe you’ve made? What do you put in your Monster Bars?
Hi there — I just have to tell you, I made these for Easter AND THEY ARE SOOO GOOD!! Â I made a slight variation, and posted them on my blog today… Â https://mydarlingdays.blogspot.com/
Thank you SO much for sharing this goodness, can’t wait to make more from your blog soon :)
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Your bars look great!
I followed the recipe exactly, and these were AMAZING (and easy!). I made them for Easter with the pastel M&Ms and my family went crazy. My dad said he loved that every single bite had a fun surprise. I would definitely make these again, but I might not bother with the toffee bits, unless of course I had them hanging around anyway!
Thanks for trying the recipe and glad it came out great for you and that you’d make it again!
So I was scrolling through your cookie recipes, looking for a way to use up the ridiculous amount of Valentine’s candy my kids have been given, when lo and behold, I found this recipe–great for using up add-ins AND in bar form–my fave. SO good! I don’t think I’ve tried your PB bar cookies before. These turned out thick so I made them into 18 triangle cookies and still feel like it’s a generous amount.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came in handy so you could use up the V-Day candy! I generally do variations on this theme right after Halloween :) I am impressed you got 18 triangle cookies out of the batch and still feel like it’s a generous amount! That’s great to hear!
Can I use this recipe but make balls and cook into cookies instead of bars?
Possibly but I have not tested it that way to know for sure!
HI!
I’m wondering if I can make these Triple Peanut Butter Monster Cookie Bars in a 13×9 pan?
Thanks!
I haven’t tried but I’m sure it will be fine. Just double the recipe.
HELP! I was planning to make this recipe for a bake sale, but I accidentally mixed the flour and the brown sugar together instead of mixing the brown sugar with the melted butter! They’re mixed really well together, there’s no going back. I really don’t want to throw out and waste the ingredients (especially since I used pricey organic brown sugar). Can I still proceed with the recipe? If not, are there any other recipes I can use the flour/brown sugar mixture for?
So you mixed a cup of brown sugar with a cup of flour? At this point if you haven’t already carried on with the rest of the recipe, I would toss it and start over. I wouldn’t continue on, knowing you’re going to put more $$ ingredients in, knowing full well you’ve already screwed up…that would guarantee then everything is going to be a mess in the final analysis. You should cut your losses now.
Generally flour and sugar don’t go together unless you’re making a streusel topping at which point you’d cut in butter. You could make these or something along these lines… https://www.averiecooks.com/fudgy-oatmeal-chocolate-chip-cookie-bars/
Do you have any suggestions for high altitude baking??
I’m not an expert at all on it but the King Arthur flour website has a great section on it (google for details).
Thank you very much!
Can your recipes be doubled and baked in a 9×13 pan instead of 8×8 or 9×9? Our family is getting together and the 25 of us looooove sweets! I have literally spent the past 3 days looking at recipes on your site and am having the hardest time deciding on just one!
Most recipes yes can be doubled to bake as a 9×13 rather than an 8×8. Most of them I don’t personally test that way because I bake 5-7 days a week for a very small family and don’t need the excess but in theory, it should work; and many readers do double and write in to say it works fine. LMK what you end up making and how it goes!
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Awesome as always! Loved these so much. I used a full bag of peanut butter egg shape m&m’s from Easter as the mix in and left out the peanut butter chips and toffee bits since I didn’t want to create more partial bags of things. I also needed to use up the m&m’s. The peanut butter ones are my favorite and any left unused would be eaten – not that a few weren’t used for quality control while baking. Super soft, dense, delicious. Would make again exactly the same, but yet I want to try other combinations and exactly as written. I’m sitting here now trying to think if I make another batch today who can I take them to so I don’t eat them all. I know I’ve commented before, but it is worth repeating that you make winner recipes.
Deb thanks for taking the time to comment again and so glad you loved these bars and want to make them again (and again!) and use up your candy stash. They’re a great pantry clean-out bar :) Glad you’re happy & thanks for the praise about my winner recipes!
Woah, woah, woah, these look amazing. Everything looks so melty and moist. Pinned, and now I have to try ASAP!
These are DANGEROUS. So easy, so yummy, and so addictive! Your recipes are so tempting to make because they come together so well and are scrumptious but I have to get them out of the house the next day or I’d eat the whole batch!
Thanks Erica for trying these and for the sweet compliments about my recipes and being easy and user-friendly. I try really hard with that and glad it’s working for you! And yes, I have to re-home and donate most of what I make, too – or I wouldn’t be able to fit thru the door. LOL
Yumm! The fourth recipe I’ve tried of yours, and just like the other three, it turned out excellent! I loved how easy it was, and it was a great way to get rid of leftover old candy. I did have to leave it in the oven for an extra ten minutes or so before it was done, but other than that this turned out great. Thank you for another great recipe!!
So glad you were able to clear out some random candy and that you’re batting 4 for 4 with my recipes – love that! And yes, baking time is variable based on candies used and just how loaded up they were, oven variances, etc. So glad you’re enjoying them!
I made a version of these to give as a birthday gift – they were fab! Have just written about them here – https://hungryhinny.com/2013/09/08/peanut-butter-mm-blondies/
Thanks for the recipe! :)
So glad you enjoyed them and just commented on your post!
These were packed full of peanut buttery goodness.. Thanks for this.. I made this one weekend with my God-Child and we had a blast making as well as eating..
That is so sweet that you made them together. Lucky kiddo and glad you loved the recipe! Thanks for LMK!